Bay-breasted Warblers are adorable little birds. We occasionally get them on our spring bird outings. However, in mid-May this year they seemed to be everywhere at Magee Marsh in Ohio. In the fall we see many more in our yard than in the spring, but it can be hard to discern between them and Blackpoll Warblers. Fall Blackpolls have yellowish feet and are a bit dingier and streakier than the Bay-breasted Warblers, but often they don’t sit still long enough to see any diagnostic features. I frequently can’t tell for certain and just call them “Baypolls.”
Fall birding is super rewarding. The number of birds, especially warblers, is incredibly high after a successful nesting season because there has been little loss from natural selection yet. The numbers can seem to be 3-4 times higher than in the spring! On the downside, the birds aren’t singing and are sporting drab non-breeding plumage. Birders talk of CFWs, confusing fall warblers, because some of the species are so hard to distinguish. For years our family made a lot of fall visits to the Michigan State Bird Observatory, the local banding station, which REALLY helped us with fall warbler identification.
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