Birding Notes

Shortly before 10:00 this morning, the day was already steamy with heat and humidity. But up in a hazy blue sky two Mississippi Kites appeared, like apparitions at first. They were flying fairly low, gradually circling and gaining altitude, when I first saw them as I was walking through the subdivision next to our own. While the Red-tailed Hawks and Vultures soar on big wide wings, the Mississippi Kites look as if they cut through the air. Their shapes are thin and sharp and precise like a blade.

These two were juveniles, with visible patterns, not the smooth gray of adults. They circled several times, gradually climbing higher until they were soaring high and flew against the sun, and I lost them.

About 20 minutes later, heading back home and on a different road, I saw a Mississippi Kite soaring to the north. I stopped to watch it, and then saw another and another – at least six Kites circling and climbing. These were not as close as the first two, but their shapes were distinct. They gradually drifted away to the northeast.

Then a few minutes later, as I was almost home, one more Mississippi Kite appeared, this one closer but soaring high. It circled around only once, then sailed fast toward the east and out of sight.

Around 3:00 this afternoon, with huge cumulous clouds looming and thunder rumbling to the south, but the sun still shining in a mostly blue sky, I was standing on the front porch when two young Carolina Wrens flew, fussing loudly, into a big tea olive bush beside me, then down to the ground, up into a Savannah holly, and finally, one of them flew into a planter right beside me, less than two feet away, and hunted around among the lantana and other flowering plants there – and came up with a long, fat, pale, wriggling caterpillar. It carried the caterpillar back into the tea olive bush, where I could still see it, subdued it without too much trouble, swallowed it.

It’s nice to have them helping keep insects out of the plants, but I was mostly impressed with how very tiny they seemed. They looked thin and frail, though energetic and feisty enough and there certainly should be plenty of insects around for them to eat right now. I’ve seen many Carolina Wrens up close, and while they are quite small, they usually look plump and sturdy – but these were scrawny. These two also looked drab and grayish-brown, while Carolina Wrens are usually a warm, rich brown and buff color.

In fact, they looked so scrawny and drab that I have begun to wonder if they were Carolina Wrens at all. They weren’t House Wrens, because there definitely was a distinct supercilium – a prominent pale stripe over the eye. But the only other possibility seems to be a Bewick’s Wren, a species that would be wildly unlikely here, and although I did notice how long and skinny the tail looked, and it did seem to be cocked to one side in an unusual way – I’m pretty sure it had no white edges. So of course they must have been juvenile Carolina Wrens.

But once again – certainly not for the first time – I am left kicking myself for being less observant than I might have been, and for assuming. Because Carolina Wrens are what I usually see and hear around the house, I assumed that’s what they were – and that’s what I saw. I’m not a good enough birder to recognize an unfamiliar species immediately – I have to look closely and check field guides, and a lot of times even then I’m not sure of what I’ve seen. In this case they almost certainly were Carolina Wrens and I’m just making something out of nothing – but I wish I’d paid attention to my own questions at the time, taken a closer look and noted the field marks more carefully. I’d like to say it’s a lesson learned, but probably not. I’ll watch for them again, just in case.

This morning around 9:30, a Red-tailed Hawk flew into a scrawny white oak on the edge of the woods around our back yard. I saw it through my office windows while I was on the phone. It wasn’t a conversation I could end easily, so I tried to watch the hawk and listen and say something now and then, all at the same time – though I never have been good at doing two things at once.

In the oak, a large, messy clump of brown leaves has accumulated in a crotch where the trunk splits into a three-way fork. The hawk perched on a branch beside this clump of leaves. It was alone, not accompanied by any harassing crows or mockingbirds. After a minute or two of looking around, it turned toward the tree and began to lean over and put its head down into the clump of leaves. It leaned over and back up several times, and I’m not sure, but I think it was drinking. The leaves in the crotch of the oak may have formed a depression that catches water.

Later in the afternoon, temperatures outside in the mid or upper 90s again, I was aimlessly looking out a window, just taking a break from work and walking around, and saw what I thought was a large butterfly of a strikingly pale color pass by like a flash of sunlight and stop on a leaf of a Savannah holly only a few inches away. It was a Luna Moth, filmy-green and exquisite, like a breath of cool air with wings.

It hung from a holly leaf with wings outspread, very large and so pale it looked more white than green, with feathery brown antennae, red feet, white furry body and wings that trailed down into long tails. A rusty wine-red line ran all along the top edge of the wings. Their surface looked as soft as rabbit fur, with subtle, feathery patterns, marked with four delicately drawn eyespots.

Its red legs grasped either side of the holly leaf, near the tip of a branch and completely exposed to the sun. Now and then the legs scrambled furiously, as if having trouble holding on to the slippery surface. Several minutes later, I went back and it was still there, but it had moved to a different position, with its legs now wrapped around a twig and looking more comfortable and secure, though it was still getting more sun than I would have thought it would want, and I wondered why it would stay there instead of choosing a spot deeper in the shade of a tree.

An hour and a half later, it was still there in almost the same spot, about half in shade and half in sun. And I noticed then how tattered and worn it looked. A big chunk was gone from the tip of one wing, and the trailing tail of the other had also been torn. It hung very still, shifting like a leaf in a breeze.

When I stepped outside this morning at 10:00, it was already very warm and humid, but for some reason did not seem unpleasant. The flowers in pots and planters on our front porch were wet with big drops of water, maybe left over from yesterday’s heavy rain, or maybe from morning dew. Cicadas sang, and as I stood there for a couple of minutes, I could not hear a single bird at all through their loud, rasping whine. Several dragonflies zipped low over the grass in open areas. A bright fresh-green anole scurried across brown mulch below the oaks. One Chipping Sparrow flew down to forage in the grass along the edge of the driveway.

No Scarlet Tanager sang this morning – at least, I didn’t hear one at this time or earlier. The last time I heard its song for sure was almost a week ago, though over the weekend I did hear the chik-brrr calls in the woods nearby.

Four Tiger Swallowtails, a Black Swallowtail, and lots of Silver-spotted Skippers fluttered in a butterfly bush and in the yellow blooms of lantana. A Red-spotted Purple floated around the wax myrtles. Grasshoppers snapped and flew. Wasps buzzed. Yellowjackets prowled around the base of the bird bath and around the roots of trees and in bushes. I think of August as the month of insects, and this year they should be especially abundant, with all the wet, hot weather. Lots of pretty little white mushrooms have popped up all over the green grass in our yard.

Along the way as I walked, I began to hear a few birds . . .  the trill of a Carolina Wren, a Bluebird’s blurry song, Titmouse, Chickadee, Crow, Cardinal, the rattle of a Red-bellied Woodpecker. The sky was hazy blue with distant high white clouds, but the sun felt good, and there were pleasant light breezes. One Turkey Vulture soared low and one Black Vulture high.

In the old field were more butterflies – Sleepy Orange, delicate yellow Sulphurs, and others I didn’t see well enough to name, orange and yellow and brown. A young Red-tailed Hawk perched on a pole and screamed. A White-eyed Vireo and Eastern Towhee sang, Mourning Doves cooed from the wires, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher called spee, and I heard a Summer Tanager’s pik-a-tuk call from the dense stand of pines and other trees toward the south end of the field. There was no sign of Blue Grosbeaks this morning, not even their calls from the thickets and weeds. But I was surprised to see two Orchard Orioles again – whether the same two or not I couldn’t say for sure, though it seems likely. Today they were much lower in the privet shrubs, and harder to see, only poking a greenish-yellow head up now and then, mostly staying hidden.

On my way back toward home, the distant speck of a soaring bird steadily drifted closer and turned out to be a Mississippi Kite. It soared directly over, a sleek dark-gray raptor with long slender wings, it circled back three or four times, and finally sailed off fast toward the southeast.

On a Saturday morning in late July – sunny, warm and steamy after rain the night before – two bright yellow birds stood out like flashing lights among the drab, faded weeds in the old field along the highway. I didn’t know what they were at first, but watched as they gleaned insects from leaves in several kudzu-draped trees and moved in and out of the thickets. After looking them up when I got back home, I found they were female Orchard Orioles, with bright yellow face, throat, breast and belly, and yellow under the tail, and a more greenish-yellow on a smooth head and back, with narrow white wing bars and what I would describe as a rather long tail that appeared slightly brownish in color. There appeared to be a thin shadowed streak through the eyes, and the bill was thin and pointed.

The two yellow birds were very animated and stayed close together, like friends. Where one flew, the other followed. They fed close together, looking long-necked as they stretched up or bent over to feed on the surfaces of leaves. A Northern Mockingbird tried several times to chase them away, but they didn’t fly far and continued to forage in the trees. In flight they looked more brownish than yellow, but when feeding in the trees, lit by the sun, their color glowed.

Meanwhile, one Red-tailed Hawk and two Black Vultures perched on utility poles over the field. The Black Vultures sat close together – one on top of a pole and the other on a wire beside it – both holding their wings up and out, with backs to the warmth of the morning sun.

Three Mourning Doves perched on wires over the field. Brown Thrashers, Mockingbirds, Titmice and Cardinals moved among the weeds and shrubs. One Gray Catbird mewed and lifted its gray head and dark cap up out of the vines briefly, then disappeared back down into the shrubs. A White-eyed Vireo, a Blue Grosbeak and an Eastern Towhee sang, and a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher called spee.

The field looked bedraggled, all the weeds, vines, grasses and shrubs withered by the heat despite fairly frequent rain. The big white blooms of wild potato vines, like large white morning glories with purple centers, speckled the power cut that runs through the center of the field. Temperatures have been around 100 for several days, a long stretch of very hot weather.

It was about ten days ago when I saw the Orchard Orioles, and I just haven’t been able to find the time to post it until now, but I’ve been walking by the field most days and haven’t seen them again. They might be there – because the field is large and densely tangled with weeds and thickets and I only pass by it once a day at most, so I was just lucky to see them this time – or maybe they were only passing through.

On the same day, when I reached home, six young Chipping Sparrows were feeding at the edge of the grass along the road. A Scarlet Tanager sang from trees around the edge of the woods, and a Pileated Woodpecker gave its cuk-cuk-cuk call. Lots of Bluebirds and Robins were active all through the neighborhood, and two Barn Swallows swooped and circled and dipped, along with three Chimney Swifts, over a large open grassy area.

This morning began, like most mornings the past week or two, with the song of a Scarlet Tanager in the oaks outside our bedroom windows. The fiery red bird with black wings sings persistently much of the day from around the edge of the yard and the nearby woods, flinging out its hoarse series of phrases over and over again, and in quiet periods the chik-brrr calls of one or two Scarlet Tanagers lace through the shadows of the trees. I seldom see them, except when the male perches near the tops of trees to sing, and even then, despite the flamboyant plumage, he’s often screened by the leaves. But it’s really nice to hear the songs and calls so often and so close around.

Under a glorious early morning sky – deep blue and white, with a profusion of clouds of many shapes and kinds, long streaks, veils, little puffs, quilts, powdery, disintegrating jet trails, and distant lazy cumulous clouds – a Chipping Sparrow sang its summery long, level trill from a group of small pines on the edge of a yard across the street, where it usually sits and sings each morning.

The air felt fresh, though warm already, and by mid afternoon it was hot again, upper 90s. It’s been a long hot summer here, as in much of the country.

A Blue-gray Gnatcatcher called spee as it flitted from branch to branch in the thick foliage of some maple trees, and a Great Crested Flycatcher called whreep from the big red oak down at the corner of our street. Both gnatcatcher and flycatcher have been pretty quiet lately, along with most other birds. But this morning there seemed to be a little more activity than usual – or maybe I was just out earlier. A Red-eyed Vireo and a Summer Tanager sang from the edge of the woods, and a couple of Carolina Wrens.

Bluebirds perched in the tops of trees, facing the morning sun, and Phoebes hunted from low branches, quietly. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird zoomed low over my head, and five Chimney Swifts twittered and swept the sky. An American Goldfinch flew over, giving its potato-chip call, and flashed such a bright yellow it looked like a tiny light. It landed in the top of a pine, and perched there, a gleaming gold against deep green and blue.

On the edge of the old field that runs along the road just outside our subdivision, a Blue Grosbeak has been singing every morning now for several days. This morning he perched on the crest of a diamond-shaped road sign. A dark, ink-blue with rust-orange wing bars and big silver beak, he tilted his head back and sang again and again. As I walked past him along the road only a few feet away, he stopped singing, switched his tail back and forth, and called a nervous, repeated chink! and was answered by another grosbeak hidden somewhere in the thickets – but he did not fly, and as soon as I had gone on past, he started singing again.

I had given up on seeing a Blue Grosbeak regularly in the field this summer, because until recently, I had only seen one a couple of times – but now here in the middle of the summer, there’s one that sings and sings, and seems to have a mate nearby.

A little further up the road, an Indigo Bunting also continues to chant its sweet-sweet, chew-chew, sweet-sweet song, and this morning was perched where I could see it, in the top of a Chinaberry tree – a tiny little drop of bright clear blue, with a hint of turquoise. A White-eyed Vireo and Eastern Towhee also were singing in the field. Mockingbirds and Brown Thrashers moved quietly around in the heat-withered kudzu, privet and blackberry vines. Mourning Doves perched on the wires.

Two Red-tailed Hawks perched on widely-spaced utility poles overlooking the field and the highway beyond – as they do just about every morning recently, at least one of them a juvenile. Two Black Vultures also are usually sitting on one of the poles, one on the pole itself, and the other on the wire right beside it.

Late this morning – a warm, muggy day with sluggish clouds slowly, slowly drifting away – two Blue Grosbeak females or juveniles were giving loud chink! calls and flashing around from spot to spot among the tall grasses and weeds in the old field. One clung to the tall ragged stem of a weed and switched its tail back and forth vigorously, as the grosbeaks often do. Their plumage was a warm tawny brown, but I couldn’t see them well or in detail, because I hadn’t brought binoculars along – it’s been so hot lately I haven’t wanted the extra weight. Any time I leave them behind, it’s almost certain that I’ll see something interesting.

But even without binoculars they were fun to watch – so energetic and full of life. I’ve seen a male and heard his song very infrequently this summer, and think they probably nested in the woods on the other side of the highway and only come into the field to visit.

The same thing is true of the Yellow-breasted Chat, which also was in the field and calling (or singing – I’m not sure how to distinguish its strange vocalizations) this morning, as it does now and then, but not every day.

Other singers along the way included a Northern Parula making its way through the trees on the edge of our yard, Carolina Wren, Summer Tanager, Acadian Flycatcher, Chipping Sparrow, Phoebe, Cardinal, Mockingbird, American Robin, Bluebird and White-eyed Vireo. A Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and Great Crested Flycatcher called. A Downy Woodpecker and a Red-bellied Woodpecker rattled, but only here and there, not nearly as vocal as at other times of year. Mourning Doves cooed. The usual two juvenile Red-tailed Hawks sat on top of utility poles overlooking the field and the highway, quiet this morning.

A neighbor stopped me along the way to tell me he’d enjoyed seeing at least 10 American Goldfinches, maybe more, feeding in a bee balm shrub in their yard.

Two Ruby-throated Hummingbirds zoomed and twittered past me as I walked – and later in the day a male and two or three females or juveniles visited the feeder and the geraniums on the deck often. Several Tufted Titmice come to shallow saucers of water on the deck to bathe, and to drink from the moat in the center of the feeder. Cicadas sing loudly all around.

Wood Thrush continue to sing in two places – one near a creek in the woods, and the other this morning in a scrubby patch of trees and lots of privet, honeysuckle and kudzu around the entrance to a subdivision down the road. Their musical, fluted notes carry and echo for a long way.

Two Red-eyed Vireos moved quietly through the tops of water oaks and pecans in our front yard. A few minutes later I heard their complaining nyanh calls.

In the morning on the last day of June, a Yellow-throated Vireo sang in the treetops around the edge of the woods behind our neighbor’s house and ours, the first time I’ve heard one in several weeks – and I’ve missed them this summer, so it was a particular pleasure to hear.

The mellow four-phrase song sounded rich and full, a riper version of the Red-eyed Vireo’s crisp refrain.

With its bright yellow throat and yellow spectacles around the eyes, greenish-gray head and back, and white wing bars, a Yellow-throated Vireo is one of our more colorful summer birds, rather sturdy in shape.

Much later, as a long, cloudy twilight faded, lots of lightning bugs flashed low over the grass and up into the lower branches of trees, and two bats circled over open areas, against a murky orange and pink sky. Cicadas still sang, and a few katydids were beginning.