Birding Notes

Another very warm fall day. The morning was sunny with a deep blue, cloudless sky, calm and rather quiet in the front yard, except for Chickadees and Titmice around the feeders, and Carolina Wrens and a Pine Warbler singing in the woods. A Phoebe sang in a neighbor’s yard. A Monarch butterfly sailed overhead, backlit against the blue.

Then from high in the pinetops on my right, I heard a small, sharp Ank-ank! Ank-ank! The calls of a Red-breasted Nuthatch. It was too high in the pines to see, and although it called repeatedly for three or four minutes, it gradually moved away to the east and out of hearing. Even though I didn’t see it, and it didn’t stay around long, I was ridiculously happy to hear these funny little calls that are often described as sounding like a tin horn.

Red-breasted Nuthatches live year-round in northern coniferous forests, but are well known for having “irruptive” years in which they are seen in abundance much further south during the fall and winter. Similar to our southern Brown-headed Nuthatches, they are small, stubby birds, with bluish-gray back, soft cinnamon-red breast and black head, with a vivid black streak through the eye and bright white stripe over the eye. They typically move head down on the trunks of trees, searching for insects, and they frequently come to feeders.

This year seems to be one of their irruptive years – a good year to take advantage of the chance to see them here. There have been numerous reports of sightings in Georgia, so I’ve been watching and listening for them but until today hadn’t had any luck. Now it’s good to know they’re around in our area, too – at least passing through now and then.

It was a cloudy, warm morning with the hope, but not the promise of rain in the air. Our serious rain deficit continues, and all the trees and other vegetation look very dry. Oconee County and surrounding counties are now under complete bans of outdoor water use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and everyone’s being urged to reduce water use as much as possible.

Raindrops spattered down now and then, but by mid morning hadn’t amounted to much. The woods on the edge of our back yard seemed very quiet except when stirred by the wind. No bird activity other than the dry sounds of little chips here and there among the leaves, the loose, cool trill of a Pine Warbler, and the burbling and fussing of two or three Carolina Wrens. I last saw a Hummingbird on Sunday, the last day of September. Since then, the feeder has seemed abandoned, except for the Chickadees and Titmice that come now and then to sip from the water moat in the middle of it.

A tiny, dark shadow of a bird darted from branch to branch among the slender young oaks just inside the woods, so small and quick I almost thought it was just a speck in my eye. But when I looked with binoculars, it turned out to be a stunning Black-throated Blue Warbler. He stayed in view for less than a minute, but his color and markings were so intense and distinctive the image stayed with me as clear as a photo – dark-blue back and head, black throat and face, pure white belly, and bright white “handkerchief” on the wing. A vivid splash of color against the muted, grayish background of the day.

I walked around and looked for several minutes, but could find no other warblers or other migrants – no sound or sight of any but this one, and it, too, had disappeared.

A Katydid Caught in an Orb-web Spider’s Grasp

Outside our kitchen window this morning, in the remnants of a web spun across the corner, a large orb-web spider held an even larger green katydid in her grasp. She seemed to be trying to chew away the silk in which it was entangled, to release it rather than to wrap it up. Most of the carefully constructed web had been demolished, maybe torn up by the katydid’s wings. Later, I found the corpse of the katydid on the window ledge below, partly chewed up, but lovely green wings intact. No sign of the spider or her web.

A Young Black Rat Snake Lost

Also this morning – a deeply cloudy, warm, humid day – we found a small, slender gray snake with dark splotchy markings lying dead just outside our garage door. A discarded snakeskin lay in the pine needles under a nearby bush. Ants had formed a trail to a spot near the end of the snake’s very thin tail. The head looked triangular, but the cloudy eyes appeared very round – not the vertical slits of a pit viper – and I could see no sign of rattles or a button on the tail. It was almost certainly a very young Black Rat Snake, which isn’t surprising because several times we’ve seen large Black Rat Snakes around the same area of our yard. We’re happy to have them around because they’re not venomous and they eat rodents and insects – on the other hand, they also eat small birds. It wasn’t clear what had killed it, though it must have been vulnerable just after leaving its old skin.

No Red-breasted Nuthatch – but an Eastern Wood Pewee and a Pileated Woodpecker

Meanwhile, around the feeders in the front yard, I was watching out for a Red-breasted Nuthatch because there’ve been many reports of sightings this fall – including a call from my sister, Janet, in Charlotte, NC, this morning saying she had seen one in her birdbath. She described it perfectly – a small, quick bird with a bluish back, stubby tail and distinctive bright white stripe over the eye. So far, I haven’t been so lucky. Around our bird baths and feeders were only the ubiquitous Titmice, Chickadees, Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, and Carolina Wren, and a Mockingbird that seems to like the fruit, nut and seed mixture I’ve put out recently. Three Mourning Doves pecked under the feeders. Our resident pair of Brown-headed Nuthatches stopped by for a while, and a pair of Brown Thrashers fed in the grass on the edge of the driveway. A Phoebe hunted from perches on our mailbox and in low branches. A Pine Warbler sang in the woods nearby.

Then – like a small consolation prize for not seeing any Red-breasted Nuthatches – or maybe as a reminder to appreciate what’s here instead of looking for something else – an Eastern Wood Pewee swooped in low and landed on the branch of a pecan tree. It flew from there all around the front yard, not staying long in any one spot, and was mostly quiet, but paused in another low branch close enough and long enough for me to see it well – and for it to sigh a brief, soft wee-oo.

A few minutes later I heard the bugling call of a Pileated Woodpecker, and then saw it as it flew across our yard – a large black bird with a rolling flight pattern, flying low, flashing white – to an oak at the corner of our property. I could just barely see its flaming red crest and imperious profile through the branches of the other trees, but it stayed around in the same general area for at least half an hour, frequently clucking or calling.

The first two days of October have brought beautiful fall weather – with crisp, chilly mornings, deep blue sky, sparkling sunlight and brisk winds – and rather frustrating birding. The treetops have often seemed full of bird activity, but I haven’t been able to spot any migrants among the wind-tossed leaves, except for one Red-eyed Vireo.

Late this morning as I walked through the neighborhood, the kee-yer cry of a soaring Red-shouldered Hawk sounded clear and close, though the hawk was so high it was barely a speck against the blue. Four Chimney Swifts twittered much lower overhead. Phoebes, Pine Warblers and Mockingbirds sang, Brown-headed Nuthatches called squeaky-dee, and I heard the kleer! of a Northern Flicker – the first one I’ve heard this fall. Although some Flickers live here year-round, more usually arrive around this time to spend the winter here, so they become much more noticeable.

The Old Field that runs along the dead-end road just outside the entrance to our subdivision is coming alive with fall color and texture, despite the drought, and despite the fact that someone recently and pointlessly sprayed a lot of the already fading kudzu with an herbicide, turning it before its time into an ugly, scraggly brown mess. But goldenrod and other yellow-flowering weeds have begun to bloom in profusion. White, purple and pink morning glories wind through grasses and thorny weeds, and are especially pretty in a roadside ditch, where the blooms tumble over ragweed, horse nettles, and tough-looking brambles and vines. Sleepy orange and Cloudless Sulphur butterflies weave around foxtails, broomsedge, tall red-topped grasses, and the deep-purple berries and raw red stems of pokeweed. Now and then the burning-orange wings of a Gulf Fritillary dance like a small flame through the grasses. Grasshoppers sing and snap and fly.

The summer birds are gone from the field – indigo buntings, blue grosbeaks, white-eyed vireos, and I think even the catbirds now – and the winter sparrows and juncos haven’t yet arrived, so the mellow chewink of Eastern Towhees is the most characteristic call in the field right now.

At 7:30 this morning, the air felt pleasantly warm and humid. Big soft gray clouds covered much of the sky, but in a loose, sleepy way, so that the sky looked mostly blue, and the sun rose clear and silver-yellow, burning away the clouds as it rose higher. Dew dampened the grass, and as I walked, big fat raindrops spattered down for several minutes, spotting the road, but never enough even to get me wet.

Several Mockingbirds have begun to sing throughout the neighborhood, so at times it sounds like a recap of the summer, a medley of Red-eyed Vireo, Tufted Titmouse, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Summer Tanager, Great-crested Flycatcher, Yellow-throated Vireo, Wood Thrush, and even Chuck Wills Widow. One Brown Thrasher also was singing this morning, as well as three Phoebes and several Carolina Wrens. Four Bluebirds sat in the bare top branches of four different pecan trees along the roadside and warbled. A Catbird mewed in the Old Field, but the White-eyed Vireos have been silent – and presumably gone – now for several days.

As I passed the Old Field, a Carolina Wren sang from the thickets, winkery-winkery-winkery-weep, and another, across the road on the other side of me, responded, jubilee-jubilee-jubilee-chee. Almost the same song, but not the same – one sounded more “chewy” while the other was sharper and more metallic. Then I heard yet another singing the same kind of repeated three syllable pattern, that was more like the classic description of a Carolina Wren’s song, teakettle, teakettle, teakettle, tea! Basically the same, but distinctly different versions.

In this part of the South, Carolina Wrens are so common we often take them for granted. Small, pugnacious brown birds with upturned tail, down-curving bill, and a white stripe over the eye, they always seem full of energy. They’re familiar to many of us as the pesky little birds that are always trying to build a nest in a hanging fern or a box in the garage, or even on top of a wheel on a truck if it hasn’t been driven in a while. One of my favorite descriptions of a Carolina Wren is given by A.C. Bent, quoting a Mr. Dawson, who wrote in 1903: “On all occasions this nervous little creature appears to be full of a sort of compressed air, like the lid of a teakettle being jarred up and down by steam.”*

As common as they are, Carolina Wrens are among the most musical and virtuosic of all birds, and at this time of year, I’m always reminded of their amazingly varied and extensive repertoire of songs, calls, and other sounds like buzzy scolding, or alarm chirping or – especially in the fall – a sort of traveling, burbling call used as they move through bushes and low trees. Their most characteristic song is two or three syllables, repeated several times, but there seem to be an almost endless number of variations on a few basic patterns. At times, I have stood in one spot and heard as many as eight different Carolina Wrens singing eight distinctly different songs around me – some two-syllable, some three – and it was impossible not to wonder what different meanings their songs might be expressing.

*A.C. Bent, Life Histories of North American Birds. Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus)

On the first day of Fall, a small feeding flock of migrating birds paid a quiet visit to the trees around our house. It was a cloudy, very warm and very humid day, with blue sky breaking through the big gray clouds now and then. The musical trill of a Pine Warbler’s song, and the sweet, repeated puh-weee of an Eastern Wood Pewee set the mood of the day.

Late in the morning, an Acadian Flycatcher called a sharp wheet! from the edge of the woods; two female Ruby-throated Hummingbirds chased each other off and on around the feeder; two Carolina Wrens sang back and forth; a Red-bellied Woodpecker whirred; and then the call of a Downy Woodpecker and the chatter of Titmice and Chickadees announced the arrival of a feeding flock of several different species of birds.

Except for the Titmice and Chickadees, most of the birds were migrants passing through on their way south, and most were moving and feeding quietly. A Black and White Warbler crept down the trunk of an oak and along its branches; a sleek-looking male Scarlet Tanager lurked deeper in the oak leaves, black wings contrasting with its yellow-green plumage; a Red-eyed Vireo made its way from branch to branch, eating caterpillars; and a tiny, rather plain-looking greenish warbler with a yellow throat and breast, very faint, indistinct wingbars, dingy white under the tail, and a pale streak over the eye fluttered in the leaves like a butterfly – a Tennessee Warbler.

At least two Chestnut-sided Warblers hunted in clusters of oak leaves at the ends of branches. With smooth green head and back, rich yellow wing bars, white eye-rings and no trace of the chestnut sides of their spring plumage, they looked bright and neat, and moved quickly. I watched one as it ate a green caterpillar – these green caterpillars in the oaks are popular. It hit the caterpillar against a branch once or twice, almost lazily, and then snapped it down quickly. At one point, it moved into a ray of sunlight that turned its greenish head and back to gold. Calling out a soft cheff! as it moved, it fluttered in a cluster of leaves near the hummingbird feeder, and one of the female Hummingbirds zoomed up aggressively and tried to chase it away, but the warbler ignored her, and only flew on to another tree after another caterpillar or two.

While the Tennessee Warbler moved mostly in the shadows, deep in the leaves, almost completely quiet, the Chestnut-sided Warblers looked sunny, lively and gregarious, even in their more subdued fall plumage, coming out into the open much more often.

The day ended with a break in the clouds and then, paradoxically, an unexpected but very welcome rain shower that fell steady and strong for a half-hour or more, much of the time raining through sunlight.

The fawn that was born in May to the lame White-tailed deer that lives in our part of the neighborhood looks like it’s doing well. Early yesterday evening we saw both mother and fawn browsing near the edge of the woods just below our tomato garden. The mother – the one I call Braveheart because she’s lived for so long with one crippled front leg – looks a little thin, but otherwise seems fine, with bright, alert eyes. The young one looks strong and healthy, and has lost most of its spots, with just a few still lingering on its rump.

Tonight they both browsed on grassy weeds as they made their way along their usual path across the yard and into the woods, but a few days ago we also watched the mother munching on a juicy, overripe tomato from our compost pile.

A female Rose-breasted Grosbeak was in our White Oak trees this afternoon, eating some kind of large green caterpillars. They must be good – while I watched her for only a few minutes, she ate three, one after another, and they seemed to be easy to find in the oak. Each one was large enough to take a few seconds for her to get down. She held one in her bill, shook her head and snapped repeatedly, for several seconds, until she eventually got it swallowed. As I’ve read in species accounts, she didn’t use the help of a foot or a branch to subdue a caterpillar – she just kept shaking it in her large, thick, pinkish bill until was subdued. After eating one, she rubbed each side of her bill quickly against a branch.

The green caterpillars also attracted a Red-eyed Vireo with a different eating style to the same tree later in the afternoon. The Vireo held each caterpillar by one end in its bill and slapped it against a branch several times before swallowing it in one quick snap. Then it, too, wiped its long, comparatively slender bill against a branch.

We only see Rose-breasted Grosbeaks here during spring or fall migration. They stand out among the smaller, flighty fall migrants like warblers, which often can be maddeningly elusive. Relatively large and stocky, the Grosbeaks are not delicate or subtle in either shape or movement. The male’s bold coloring – black back, pure white belly and rose-red splotch on the upper breast – identifies him immediately. The female is handsome rather than flashy, but still distinctive, with rich brown and cream-white plumage that blends more easily with a leafy autumn background – her head striped in very dark brown and white, with a broad white stripe over the eye, dark brown wings with white wing bars, flecks of white across the lower wings and back, and breast heavily streaked in dark brown.

At times even Rose-breasted Grosbeaks can go unnoticed, when they’re quiet and stay hidden in deep or high foliage, but they often come to feeders, and the ones I’ve watched around our yard – both male and female – have shown personalities as colorful and assertive as the male’s appearance. They’re never dull.

This evening not long before sunset, the edge of our deck lay in the shadow of the oaks while the last light of the sun lit the tops of pines at the edge of the woods. A Bluebird sang somewhere in the distance, and Chimney Swifts twittered overhead.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds had been chasing each other around all day, and one male seemed particularly insistent on keeping others away from the feeder. When he wasn’t sipping nectar or chasing off other Hummingbirds or Tufted Titmice – who came to drink water from the moat in the middle of the feeder – he perched over the feeder on the crook of the pole that held it, or nearby, on a low branch of one of the oaks.

As I watched, a female Hummingbird zoomed up to the feeder. The male zoomed in from the oak to chase her away. She veered off – but immediately turned back and hovered defiantly over the feeder, and the two faced off over it – she on the left, he on the right. She looked as if she were saying, “Who do you think you are?!”

With the male still hovering uncertainly, she settled down to sip at one of the openings. Out-bluffed, he lowered himself to sit on the opposite rim of the feeder and watched, turning his head this way and that, flashing his throat, and never taking a sip while she was there. She fed peacefully, and apparently in no hurry, for almost a minute. When she finally seemed satisfied and hummed softly away, he immediately flew to the spot she had left and took several sips of nectar there, as if reclaiming his territory – and maybe trying to reclaim some of his lost dignity. He stayed in that spot for at least a minute longer before flying off again to take up his perch in the oak.

In the weed-choked thickets of the old field that runs along the dead-end road just outside our neighborhood, there’s a singer that’s rarely seen, but it’s one of the most characteristic members of the field’s wildlife community. A White-eyed Vireo has been singing almost every day since the first one arrived in early spring. On some days during the summer it was the only song I heard in the field – so much a part of the scene that it might have gone unnoticed – and there are still one or two singing now, after the Blue Grosbeaks and Indigo Buntings have left, and even the Cardinals, Mockingbirds, and Brown Thrashers are mostly quiet.

Like many birds, the White-eyed Vireo’s song reflects its habitat – dry and sharp-edged, but with a musical tune winding like a flowering vine through the crisp percussive notes – chik-aperioo-chik! To me, it sounds similar to the wildflowers that bloom in the field, like the blue and purple morning glories twisting among the woody and grassy weeds in the ditch along the roadside, just below the thickets of privet, blackberry and honeysuckle where the Vireo and other weed-loving birds take cover.

Although it sings most of the time from deep in the shrubs, a White-eyed Vireo also often comes out into the low, open branches of bushes or small trees. It’s not particularly shy, and well worth a little patience to find. It’s a small, grayish bird, with a white throat, a yellow wash under each wing, white wing bars, and bright yellow markings around the eyes that look like “spectacles.” The white iris of its eye is unique and rather startling, though it can be hard to see in the tricky light among lots of leaves and shadows.

White-eyed Vireos are common birds in overgrown pastures, abandoned fields and second-growth woody areas in this part of the South. But as the species account in Birds of North America notes, “A principal restriction on the White-eyed Vireo appears to be the availability of suitable habitat. Since the dense scrub this species prefers has little economic value, it is rarely protected.”*

As more and more second-growth woods and old fields disappear in the path of suburban development, this kind of habitat needed by White-eyed Vireos and other birds like Field Sparrows, Indigo Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks, Prairie Warblers and Yellow-breasted Chats is shrinking, and unless we do something to protect places like these, it seems inevitable that before too long we’ll have to go to “special places” to see many of these bird species we now think of as common.

*Hopp, S. L., A. Kirby, and C. A. Boone. 1995. White-eyed Vireo (Vireo griseus). In The Birds of North America, No. 168 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and The American Ornithologists’ Union, Washington, D.C.