5-12-23 We continue grocery shopping online with curbside pickup. On May 13th I received a text message they were short on help and a high number of orders as it was the Friday before Mother’s Day so our order would not be reading between 11:30 and 12:00. We birded a few places waiting for our order. At 12:37 PM we were getting impatient for our order to be started. We decided to park at Boardwalk West on Lake Macatawa and walk up what is known as the Historic Ottawa Beach Parks. This is a path that is just east of the dunes along Lake Michigan. We walked up a bit and finally got a notice they had started our grocery shopping. We turned around and headed back to the car. Suddenly there was this very loud “take me to Rio chick” call about 15 feet off the path in a shrub. Then the White-eyed Vireo flew back to tree further back and posed for its photo to be taken. As we stood there, to our surprise another White-eyed Vireo flew in high up in a different tree. I am posting the second photo as it is either a female or a first-year bird. This is the first time we have seen two of the WEVIs together. They stayed about a week, being very cooperative for many birders to see. This species has been seen in Ottawa County about once a year for the past few years, but not usually this well and for so long.
Back to the groceries. When a person (not our shopper) brought out our groceries at 1:15, I told her to tell our grocery shopper thank you for being so late with our order. She said our grocery shopper was very stressed that our order had taken so long. I told her we would not have seen these rare birds if we had picked up our groceries on time.
The adult has the white eye and wingbars. The second one to arrive has a duller eye and no wingbars.