Top 10 Birding Spots

Point Pelee, Ontario

By the time the northbound warblers reach this narrow, 12-mile sand spit projecting into Lake Erie, their song-control centers are hormonally pumped, and their plumage is glowing with ardor. Spring is breeding season and Point Pelee is almost home for many warblers, which are members of the passerine order of birds.

Along established birding trails, Pelee birders gather for the annual "passerine play" — one of the greatest shows in birding. From late April to early June, the curtain never falls — because there is no curtain. Spring foliage, the view-blocking bane of warbler-watchers elsewhere, is retarded by the cold water of the lake. The birds have no place to hide.

In the generally low canopy, flame-colored blackburnians, tiger-stripped Cape Mays and jade-colored Tennessee warblers flicker and dance. From the understory, the musical chortles of mourning and Connecticut warblers bring birders at a run.

The first half of May is generally better for southern strays (birds such as yellow-throated and prothonotary warblers, which do not normally range this far north); the third weekend is prime for the mass of species that breed in Canada. But if you choose any weekend, arrive early — shortly after the park opens at 5 a.m. Eighty thousand birders visit Pelee every spring (6,000 to 7,000 per day on the weekend). All come searching for color, song — and the 35 species of warblers that make up the cast of the "passerine play."

Top 10 map

Top 10 Birding Spots was compiled by Pete Dunne who is the director of the New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory and author of "Tales of a Low Rent Birder," "Feather Quest" and "Before the Echo."