Birding Notes

It was another in a string of very hot, humid days – typical for August in Georgia – with hazy, bleached-blue sky and temperatures in the upper 90s by mid afternoon. Cicadas, grasshoppers and other insects sing all day, and katydids and crickets sing all night. Most of the woodland birds are pretty quiet. I last heard the call of an Acadian Flycatcher July 29, but they might still be around. A Blue Grosbeak continues to sing in the Old Field along Highway 441, occasionally there’s an Indigo Bunting singing in a vacant lot along the loop road in our neighborhood, and there’s a pair of Northern Flickers that I’ve seen every morning for the past week in one of the big shady yards. Usually they’re hunting in the grass beneath the pecan trees, or in the early morning they perch in a bare branch at the top of a pecan and bask in the morning sun.

Our Bluebird couple is feeding babies in its second nest of the season – the first was successful, with at least two healthy juveniles – and I’m just hoping they’ll survive this heat wave. Both male and female Bluebird make frequent trips to the bluebird house with food. This morning I watched as the male Bluebird perched in a low branch near the nest house for several minutes, holding an insect in its beak. Finally, the female Bluebird flew from somewhere down to the grass, picked up something there and then flew directly into the bluebird house. The male followed her and clung to the outside of the house, poking his head inside the entrance. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t see exactly what occurred, but after just a minute or two, the male flew, and then the female flew out too.

Off and on throughout the day, I heard the voices of Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Great-crested Flycatcher, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Chimney Swifts, Goldfinch, Eastern Towhee, Chipping Sparrow, Carolina Wren, Chickadees, Titmice, Cardinals, occasional Blue Jays, Crows, and the coos and whistling wings of Mourning Doves. Phoebes hunt from low branches around our yard, and both birdbaths stay busy all day long.

This morning about 10:45-11:00 four Swallow-tailed Kites were soaring and catching insects over our neighborhood. They flew high in a hazy blue sky, and I could hardly believe it when I saw their deeply forked tails. They gradually circled closer until they were directly over me, and I watched for several minutes as they sailed like seabirds on long, slender, black and white wings and swerved to catch insects in the air. They were spectacular!

Two Mississippi Kites were soaring with them when I first saw them, and they all gradually circled and moved from east to west. After they disappeared in the distance, a single Swallow-tailed Kite appeared in the east again and circled a few times before disappearing back to the east – I don’t know if this was a fifth, or if it was one of the first four.

This was about the same time of day when I saw two Mississippi Kites here yesterday.

One of the best descriptions of Swallow-tailed Kites I’ve read is on the National Audubon Society’s Watchlist, which identifies them as a species of concern because of their seriously declining populations:

“Spreading its forked tail as it soars, the Swallow-tailed Kite looks like a flying star. This black and white raptor patrols the air over the wooded blackwater rivers and wetlands of the southeastern United States. Its nimble flight requires little exertion and allows this kite to eat on the wing. In North America, the primary cause of its steep decline is the loss of wetlands.” *

We’re very lucky to see them here sometimes during the late summer.

*A link to the National Audubon Society Watchlist is in the column on the right.

This morning about 10:30, it was already hot and humid when I headed out for a late walk. The sun was high, the sky a cloudless, hazy blue, and cicadas were buzzing loudly. When I saw three dark soaring birds in the distance, I expected them to be vultures, but then I saw their long slender wings, held thin and flat, longish tails, and white heads that caught the sunlight even when they were still quite high – Mississippi Kites.

One disappeared into the distance, but the other two circled lower, and stayed over our neighborhood for about 20 minutes, swooping down almost to treetop level. Both were males, with white, rounded heads and white on the inner, back part of their wings. Their flight was dramatic, from high to low and then high again, three or four times pulling their wings in and diving toward the ground, then soaring back up again. I watched them until they circled up very high and drifted away to the southwest.

As if this wasn’t reward enough for coming out in the hot sun, as I was watching the Kites, a Red-shouldered Hawk flew across the road directly in front of me, looking in my binoculars as if it were only two or three feet away – a fast but vivid image.