Magee Marsh Field Report and Photos 2026-04-28

My goal this year is to get up to Magee Marsh once a week for the entire spring migration. Here are my notes from this visit.

Field Notes

Drizzling and windy (15mph) and coldish (48°F to 52°F), but not as cold as last week - that extra 10°F helps. I walked the boardwalk, then the estuary trail, then came back to the boardwalk for a while. I was there from 8:30AM to about 1:30PM.

The day started out SO slow. I walked almost the entire boardwalk without seeing any birds I could take pictures of, and barely any birds at all, in spite of hearing lots of Yellow Warblers calling. I finally got a good picture at the "west tower" branch - the cul-de-sac with benches all around near the west entrance to the boardwalk - where a Red-Bellied Nuthatch was working a tree right off of the boardwalk. Someone told me a Prothonotary Warbler was seen here, and might be nesting, but it didn't show up, and after a while I moved on.

(Quick aside - it's the west tower because there used to be a tower here. It was knocked down by a storm, so they replaced it with a cul-de-sac with benches all around. It was a great place to hang out and wait for the birds, as you'll see later.)

The estuary trail was better, and the rain finally stopped. Across from the estuary trail entrance were a pair of Kingbirds. On the estuary trail itself I finally found the Yellow Warblers I was hearing from the boardwalk. I also saw white-throated and white-crowned sparrows, and I followed a palm warbler along the stone embankment of the estuary for a while.

I decided to go back to the west tower on the boardwalk and see if I could spot the prothonotary warbler I was told about, and things kicked off. A trio of birders I chatted with earlier were there, and all of a sudden we were spotting warblers all around. A Blackburnian Warbler appeared, and then over the next two hours we saw a Nashville, Black-Throated Green, the promised Prothonotary Warbler, and a Northern Waterthrush. (And the red-breasted nuthatch was still working the trees nearby.)

This sounds like a lot of warblers - and it was! - but they were all single birds, not like we get when the migration is in full volume. I can't wait for the next few weeks, when things pick up…

Warblers

Prothonotary
Yellow-rumped
Yellow
Palm
Nashville
Black-throated green
Blackburnian
Northern Waterthrush (it's a warbler, not a thrush - it's in the wood-warbler family.)