Spring Arrivals Continue: Western Wood-Pewee on the Tuolumne River

The parade continues. The pattern is the same: a few days will pass, and I won't see any new birds on the Tuolumne River, and I'll start thinking that I've missed some of my favorites. Then I'll turn a corner on the Tuolumne Parkway Trail, and there will be another spring arrival. On Thursday, the new kid on the block was a Western Wood-Pewee (Contopus sordidulus). It simply landed on a branch about twenty feet in front of me, and we stared at each other for maybe two minutes, and then it took off. I've seen them here in previous years, as early as the first of May. I think they may be passing through because I haven't seen any during the summers, but in the fall they returned again for a few weeks on their way south to Central America.