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.