Warbler Challenge Continues at Rondeau Provincial Park | Two OMG Tier Warblers!

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Hi everyone. I'm Stu.

[00:00:01]>> I'm Sarah. Welcome back to the channel.

[00:00:03]>> We're really excited to continue with the Warbler Challenge. This weekend we find ourselves in the Rondo area. We'll see you after the intro.

[00:00:28]Here at Rondo Provincial Park, we're continuing with our warbler challenge. A quick reminder, I'll show you the checklist, too. We're trying to find 36 warblers that breed consistently or semicconsistently in the province of Ontario. Actually, our target is 30 of those 36. There's some pretty tough ones on there. Can we find any of them this weekend? For the uninitiated, Rondo Provincial Park is this massive peninsula reaching out into Lake Eerie.

[00:00:55]From a bird's perspective, migrating north into Canada. It's a giant lakeshore magnet and the very first land available to touch down on after a grueling flight across the lake, usually taken during the night. When the warm morning light arrives, dormant insects stir into life. Warblers and other migrants will feast to replace their depleted energy reserves. Some will stay and breed here. Others are just staging before they move into the far north.

[00:01:24]This is a vital window of opportunity for us and our warbler challenge. We began with an optimistic walk down Bennett Avenue. Optimistic because a yellowthroatated warbler had been spotted here. We tried to identify this brown thrush. It could be a Swainson's, a gray sheep, a wood thrush, or a vary.

[00:01:45]We were leaning towards vary because of the breast pattern, and you can hear us discussing that before Jason's terrible dad joke. It's a very drab looking thrush.

[00:01:54]>> It has very light spotting.

[00:01:56]>> Very light spotting.

[00:01:58]>> Jesus Christ.

[00:01:59]>> These thrush species all look a little bit similar, but the Verie has much less spotting on the breast. Just a kind of bib section and it has quite white underparts.

[00:02:11]As if presenting itself to help educate us. Then a wood thrush appeared. The spotting is more defined and it covers the whole of the breast. Not to mention that echoing flute-like song.

[00:02:26]>> We got a oral Sarah. So that's a first.

[00:02:30]>> Yeah, >> we spotted a few warblers in the canopy.

[00:02:35]We already have yellow and yellow rumpt, but this blackthroatated green needs checking off the list.

[00:02:42]We put the blackthroated green in the moderate tier because once migration is wrapped up, they aren't as commonly seen down south near us because they prefer the Canadian shield and boreal forest further north. A few will stick around further south where they can find mature conifers, though. You'll often hear this warbler before you see it. Its distinct high-pitched buzzing song is quite loud for such a small bird.

[00:03:08]For a change of scenery and just on a bit of a whim, we turned onto a seasonal trail down near the deer exlosure.

[00:03:15]Turned out to be an excellent decision.

[00:03:18]>> All right, guys. As a kind of off chance, we came down a bit of a side trail and we picked up brethonatory warbler. That's a pretty good one, right Sarah?

[00:03:25]>> Yep.

[00:03:25]>> That is our second one on the hard tier.

[00:03:29]So, that's some good progress or some good inroads to make on that particular level on our checklist.

[00:03:36]The prothonatory warbler flying in and out of this tree, catching insects and occasionally singing. Our second hard tier warbler is an endangered species in Canada with only about 30 birds in the whole country and all of them in southwestern Ontario.

[00:03:54]They require mature deciduous swamps and they nest in cavities. There isn't much of that habitat left. basically just a strip of Carolinian habitat on the shore of Lake Eerie at places like Peely National Park and here at Rondo. From hard to easy, the black and white war wobbler. These are such fun birds. I really like them. They have extra long rear claws and stronger legs than other wobbler species, which allows them to specialize in clinging to tree trunks and the underside of branches to glean insects that other wobblers just can't reach. relatively subdued black and white striped plumage, but I like them for their simplicity.

[00:04:38]After all that excitement, we decided to try the wobbler's way trail. The picture of the Canada warbler on the sign and the name of the trail promised good things. Our first rose breasted gross beak of the year. The male here with the red triangle on the breast, closely followed by good views of the female.

[00:05:03]We saw a few more wood thrushes here, too. But rumors of a nearby awesome bird meant that we moved on to the dirt road that connects Wobbler's Way to the Harrison Trail. Now, we've hit the jackpot a little bit on this dirt road that leads to the uh Pony Barn. And we've seen a few cool birds which we'll get into in a second. We're a little bit torn because um we've we've heard hooded warbler but we can't seem to find that.

[00:05:28]But there's also reports of a prairie war that's been seen about 15 20 minutes ago and that's one of our OMG birds. So don't really want to miss both of them, but let's see what happens. White eyed.

[00:05:40]Nice surprise of a white eyed viro. This is north of its expected range according to most maps, so it's always a treat to spot one in Ontario. Our province has a lot of agriculture and patches of forest, but not enough of the dense overgrown bramly scrubland that this species demands.

[00:05:59]These birds do a lot of singing. They have the typical viro thickish bill with a slight hook and the viro type spectacles, yellow on this one. But it's the bold, bright white eye that really stands out.

[00:06:15]Time for another warbler. And it's one of the really good-looking ones, the Magnolia Warbler. If I had to make a top five of Ontario warblers based on looks alone, this one is locked in. This one likes breeding in conifers, which tends to mean central and northern Ontario.

[00:06:32]It's actually one of the most populous warblers in the whole province during the summer. But if you're from southern Ontario like us, you might not see as many of them as you do, for example, yellow warblers, which breed in the south.

[00:06:46]We reached the so-called pony barn and circled the trail you see to the right with the brush pile.

[00:06:53]Here is Ontario's only hummingbird, the rubythroatated hummingbird. Usually, it arrives in the first couple of weeks of May.

[00:07:02]We weren't really all that optimistic about finding the prairie wobbler. We'd never seen one in Ontario before and the report said it was a kind of brief flyby. We did have a look amongst the brush near the barn and a bit further onto the Harrison Trail. But after a strong start with some nice wobblers in this video, things were slowing down. We decided to drive deeper into the park and try the Tulip Tree Trail. But the less said about this, the better. I didn't film any birds at all.

[00:07:35]Okay, unfortunately no joy on that tulip tree trail. So, we're going to head for lunch, but we're going to make it reasonably snappy because subsequent reports have come up of both the prairie warbler and the uh yellowthroated warbler. So, we're going to maybe try for those when we get back.

[00:07:53]Okay, we've busted back into Rondo Provincial Park. That yellowthroated warbler is being reported again. It's an OMG bird. any of those birds from the OMG tier would be a massive help. It means we wouldn't have to find all of the hard tier because I'm a little bit worried about Louisiana water thrush to be honest. We uh missed that um several weeks ago when there was a good report in Oakville. So, let's see if we can get down this trail pretty quickly and find the yellowthroated wobbler. The yellowthroatated warbller had been reported where Bennett Road meets the Harrison Trail. We parked in the wrong spot and we had to bust it about a mile down the Harrison trail, but it was worth it. We got it. Hiding a little at first, but yellowthroatated warbler.

[00:08:37]Great boost for the warbler challenge.

[00:08:39]It's an OMG bird.

[00:08:42]>> Great looking warbler.

[00:08:44]>> This one is a showstopper in looks, but also because it's here in Ontario. It's more at home in the pinewoods or the cypress swamps of Georgia or Louisiana.

[00:08:53]A microscopic number of birds might breed in Ontario some years. So, it just about made it onto our checklist. Our best wobbler sighting so far in the challenge and an Ontario lifer. It has a clean slate gray back and wings punctuated by two stark white wing bars and a white belly with sharp black streaks running down the flanks. But it's the face and neck that really grabs you. A bold black triangle below the eye with white contrasting lines. The sharp monochrome contrast frames the absolute centerpiece of this bird. The brilliant almost neon yellow throat.

[00:09:29]>> Yellow throatated wobbler. We found it.

[00:09:31]What do we think, guys?

[00:09:33]>> Awesome.

[00:09:35]>> Can't beat getting something on the OMG category.

[00:09:37]>> It's a really nice looking bird, too.

[00:09:39]>> Yeah, really good views of it. And uh so glad we got it. It was worth the hike.

[00:09:44]>> Much better views than what we got in Florida.

[00:09:46]>> Yeah, our best ever views of a yellowthroated war in Ontario, too.

[00:09:49]Bonus. Let's see what else we can find at Rondo.

[00:09:53]>> Making our way back up the Harrison trail, the prairie wobbler hadn't been seen for a few hours, but yours truly refound it. From one OMG bird to another, let's take a look at some footage of a prairie warbler. I was walking past a thick bush, saw some movement, suspicious looking bird, wasn't sure what it was. Jason suspected it might be the prairie wobbler kind of bobbing its tail, one of its traits.

[00:10:15]Sure enough, it is. I saw a flash of yellow and I knew it was something unusual. Jason has seen more prairie wobblers than we have and he called it.

[00:10:23]>> I think that is it. It's bobbing its tail, too.

[00:10:27]>> Another great wobbler for us to get.

[00:10:31]>> With some patience, it eventually came out. The plumage is a little undefined on this individual. Either a first spring, secondyear male or perhaps a female. We've seen prairie wobblers in Florida before, but this is our first ever Ontario sighting.

[00:10:47]This is an OMG bird because there's usually only a few hundred breeding pairs in Ontario each year. And because they are extremely localized and specialized, they require rocky baron habitat for breeding, which has rapidly declined in the province. Well, that makes the wobble challenge a little bit easier. We still got a bunch of birds to find for it, but having two OMG tier birds really helps us out. So, we can afford to miss a couple of the harder ones potentially if we have to to get to that 30 out of 36. The news spread of our refinding of the prairie wobbler and a crowd began to grow. But we're not done yet. We had another extraordinary sighting down on Bennett Road. After birding further along on Harrison Trail briefly, we returned to Bennett Road where we started the video. It was rammed with over a hundred people, so I didn't film. Although we did run into a few viewers of the channel who wanted to say hi, including Mike and Rose. The crowds were for a ceruan warbler. You can hear a fellow Brit, a birding guide, helping me to find it.

[00:11:48]>> I think I got it.

[00:11:50]>> It's a female, so it's uh only pale gray uh blue on the upper side and then whitish below with very faint streaking.

[00:12:01]I saw a ceruan warbler in my pre- eirding days, but I've never recorded it on e-ird. So, for the channel purposes, we're calling this a lifer.

[00:12:17]It would be great to see a breeding plumaged male sometime, but it's a tough bird to find in Ontario, so we'll take the female.

[00:12:25]It's not quite OMG levels because they do breed consistently in a couple of spots in the province, but they love being way up high in the canopy and tough to spot.

[00:12:34]>> For thonitary, yellowthroated warbler, ceruan, and prairie warbler. It's going to be a tough day to beat. This is a once in a lifetime.

[00:12:46]>> Yeah, this is one of our best days of birding in Ontario. Uh just got that ceruan warbler. We had a lead on that.

[00:12:52]It's also a special day today, right Sarah?

[00:12:54]>> Yeah. So, today is also global big day.

[00:12:57]Uh we haven't talked a lot about it because this video will come out a little bit later. Um but it's a very important day for tracking migratory birds. Um and EIRD has set a goal of tracking 8,000 species. So, we're trying to do our part to help with that.

[00:13:10]>> We certainly found some special ones, but the weather's not on our side. It seems like there's a storm moving in. We might have time for a little bit more birding, but we might have to peg it from the park once uh the skies open up a little bit. Stay tuned. So, let's see if we can find anything else in the meantime.

[00:13:23]>> All we really had time for before the rain started coming down was one more wobbler. Cape May.

[00:13:30]>> It was vital to get this warbler during migration because their breeding grounds off further north. We wouldn't be able to chase the Cape May up there. We had to get it as it passed through. Well, guys, what a weekend. We've seen such a stack of birds. It's really pushed us along on our warbler challenge, too.

[00:13:46]Stay tuned to the channel, though, because we'll have more from the warbler challenge. We still got some pretty basic warblers to catch as well as a few more harder ones. So, let's see if we can still make it. 30 out of 36 is the target. Some really good ones today.

[00:13:59]Thank you for watching this video.

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[00:14:20]>> Bye.