Birding Notes

In a large yard of pecan trees and grass, a blackbird shimmering with iridescent blue and green, and with a striking yellow eye, was feeding with a mixed gathering of Red-winged Blackbirds, Starlings, Robins, Chipping Sparrows, Eastern Bluebirds and House Finches. I think it was a male Brewer’s Blackbird, though I’m not completely sure. In field guides, at least, Brewer’s and Rusty Blackbirds look very similar in size and shape, and the males are both all-black – though the Brewer’s is supposed to be more iridescent, while the Rusty is a duller black, usually with a ripple of rusty color in its winter plumage.

It seemed to me this blackbird looked different in the way it stood and moved, slightly different in shape or character, in addition to the iridescence. But wishful thinking can be persuasive, I know, and since it’s much less common for us to find Brewer’s here, that might color my impressions. Brewer’s Blackbirds are more common in the west though they can be found here, while Rusty Blackbirds winter in the eastern U.S. Brewer’s Blackbirds are said to prefer open fields, pastures or suburban areas, while Rusties prefer wooded swamps. Here we have a little of both, plus an old pecan grove.

A large flock of blackbirds has continued to visit our neighborhood almost every day this winter, and I often stop to watch them. Lately Red-winged Blackbirds have been the most prominent members of the flock, but there are usually at least a few Rusty Blackbirds, as well as Common Grackles and some Starlings and Brown-headed Cowbirds. Even when most of the flock is not around, there often will be just a few stray birds like this, feeding with other species.

Two or three weeks ago I watched a blackbird flock spread out across the grass and trees in several yards, and among them found male and female Rusty Blackbirds – and some birds that puzzled me at the time, but now I think it’s very likely they were female Brewer’s Blackbirds. They appeared to be plain, grayish-brown birds with dark eyes, not pale, and not so attractively colored and patterned as a female Rusty is. At the time, I just thought maybe the light was bad and I couldn’t see them well enough.

Watching and studying a blackbird flock is a good reminder never to assume. At first glance, they all just look like blackbirds. But a closer look begins to show the several different forms the idea of “blackbird” can take – the big, glossy, noisy Common Grackles; the smaller, more slender, elegant Rusty Blackbirds, with subtle patterns of rust in the male and rust, brown, taupe, buff and gray in the female; and Red-winged Blackbirds, easily known by the red and yellow patches on the wings, and by their marshy con-ka-reeee songs; dowdy, stocky Brown-headed Cowbirds; speckled, yellow-billed Starlings – and, maybe, the iridescent blues and greens and fierce yellow eye of a Brewer’s Blackbird male, or the plain, unstreaked grayish-brown of the females.

The low, soft, nasal calls caught my attention at first – a constant, quiet exchange of notes. They weren’t hard to find – two very small, quick gray and white birds creeping over the branches of a bare-limbed pecan tree. White-breasted Nuthatches.

It was late in the afternoon and I’d just stepped out onto the front porch to go for a walk. The calls were not the brazen awnk-awnk chatter that usually announces that a White-breasted Nuthatch is around, but much more intimate, steady communication between the pair – staying in touch – as they foraged for food in the bark of the tree, working separately but never too far apart.

Although White-breasted Nuthatches have become more common here in the past couple of years, I still don’t see them very often, so it was fun to get this chance to watch them for several minutes. They stayed and stayed in the same tree, moving very quickly and lightly over the larger limbs, going round and round a branch, probing with long, thin, slightly upturned bills, now and then stopping to probe more deeply and flick up bark, or to raise a head and look up in the classic nuthatch pose. Sometimes they spiraled upward as they moved, sometimes down, sometimes straight around the branch.

Because it was a sunny afternoon with clear, filtered light, and because the tree was very close to where I stood, I had an unusually good view of the two small, pert birds – the blue-gray back, neat black crown, snow-white face and breast, and even the rusty smudges of color under the very short tail. The very long bill turns up slightly in a rather comical way, as if it had been bent. They were still there when I finally stepped off the porch and headed up the driveway, under a big, soft-blue sky with high cirrus clouds and balmy air, an afternoon that looked and felt like spring.

We’ve had lots of those days lately – and it would be easier to enjoy them if not for the fact that we’ve had so little winter weather this year it seems as if we’ve had no winter at all. Bluets, henbit and dandelions are all in bloom along the roadsides, the tiny bluets especially pretty, scattered in profusion over the drab, ground-hugging weeds. Japanese magnolias, daffodils and even some forsythia, redbuds and a wild plum here and there are in bloom, though the flowering trees and bushes look hesitant and sparse, as if not quite sure whether to come out – and yet, it’s so warm and the sky is so blue.

The early warmth also has many birds singing, and on this day the sun – which had come out late in the day, after a cloudy start – seemed to have encouraged a lot of activity. Before I even left the porch, while standing and watching the nuthatches, I saw or heard at least 20 different species of birds.

Two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers visited another pecan tree in the yard, one chasing the first one away. A Yellow-rumped Warbler perched on one of the feeders, and Chickadees and Titmice went back and forth from feeders to trees. A flock of about two dozen Cedar Waxwings burst up from a tree and flew away – the first of many Cedar Waxwings I later saw all through the neighborhood, two, three, four hundred in all, maybe, though I didn’t try to count carefully.

A Dark-eyed Junco and several Mourning Doves searched the ground under the feeders, a Northern Cardinal and a Carolina Wren sang, Crows cawed in the distance and Blue Jays cried. A Red-bellied Woodpecker called its spring-time quuurrr, a Downy Woodpecker called pink! and one Northern Flicker called kleer! from the woods across the street. Two Turkey Vultures floated over the treetops, a Mockingbird swooped low across the yard and into a holly bush, a couple of Eastern Bluebirds sang, and a Brown-headed Nuthatch or two began to get closer, traveling through the pines and calling squeaky-dee.

Several American Robins were scattered out across the grass and in the trees in our yards and neighbors yards – and all through the neighborhood. Like the Cedar Waxwings, they seemed to be everywhere.

The clear morning light also brought a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker into unusually vivid view. It mewed loudly from an old pecan tree in a yard, where it was inspecting sapsucker holes that ringed the trunk. It was a brilliantly-colored male, with crimson throat and crown bordered in black, a black and white striped face, black and white barred back, and a broad white stripe down the wing. It worked its way up the trunk, checking out the holes, pausing several times to lift its head and look around, its colors and patterns highlighted against the soft blue sky.

Though I’ve seen dozens, maybe hundreds of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers over the years, an encounter like this never fails to amaze me, that such an elegant bird can live here among us, passing most days for the most part quietly and peacefully unnoticed among the drab gray bare-limbed trees of winter. Despite its often laughed-at name, the sheer beauty of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker on a sunny morning offers one good, pure, simple reason why a birdwatcher watches birds – even birds you’ve seen countless times before.

An Eastern Phoebe, Pine Warbler and Northern Cardinal sang as I walked down the road this morning, under a soaring pale blue sky with high white cirrus clouds and criss-crossed with spreading jet trails. The air was chilly, brisk, but not cold, the sun high and bright. In the east, the last big white clouds from yesterday’s long, dark rain were drifting away, crowded together like a herd. It was a morning that looked and felt and sounded like spring.

Eastern Bluebirds – sunbirds, with their colors reflecting the sky and the light – sang their blurry chorry-chorry from the tops of tall trees. Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Carolina Wrens and House Finches sang. Woodpeckers rattled and drummed, Brown-headed Nuthatches chattered excited squeaky-dees; Chipping Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers sprayed up into flight from the roadsides.

But above all the activity of small songbirds and woodpeckers, the morning belonged to hawks – at least four Red-shouldered Hawks and three Red-tailed Hawks, at different times and places – soared and circled and cried, so glorious to watch that it was hard to look away from the sky.

The first was a Red-shouldered Hawk that flew directly overhead, flapping its wings several times, the undersides of the wings flashing pale in the sunlight, its ruddy breast glowing. I watched it flying alone – as far as I could see – for several minutes before it was joined by a second Red-shouldered Hawk and soon after that by a third.

The three soared and circled fairly low, then slowly began to make their way higher. The black-and-white striped wings now more visible, with pale crescents near the wing-tips; the banded tails and ruddy breasts all showing in unusual detail in the clear light. They circled and cried kee-yer and climbed higher. Toward the north, from somewhere in some tall pines around the edges of the woods, I heard a fourth Red-shouldered Hawk making choppy, agitated cherra-cherra-cherrra calls. A few minutes later, after the three soaring together had drifted out of sight, the fourth one flew up roughly out of the pines, still calling in what sounded like agitation. It seems likely the four hawks may have been two pairs contesting the boundaries of their territories. It’s a happy thought that we might have two nesting pairs somewhere nearby.

The first Red-tailed Hawk appeared as a small spot quite high, in another, less wooded area of the neighborhood, big, broad wings placidly stretched out wide. Less animated than the vibrant Red-shouldered Hawks, but more regal, maybe, it glided steadily up in wide circles, its dull red-orange tail tilting as it turned and caught the light of the sun. Then it drifted back down lower and passed right over me, showing the pale under side and the dark-brown hooded head.

Another Red-tailed Hawk – or maybe the same one – sat on top of a utility pole near the highway, just outside our subdivision.

Then later, as I was headed back home, two Red-tailed Hawks were circling together fairly low, and a third soared directly above but much higher, barely visible. I watched this one until it disappeared from view, just melting into the blue. The other two below gradually rose higher in big wide circles, not flapping at all, just riding on broad outspread wings, until they appeared only as small, small winged shapes that drifted off very high, toward the west.

Late on a chilly, gray, drizzly morning lots of small birds crept around in a large, soggy grass yard, searching for food. They might have gone unnoticed, moving mostly low to the ground, like wind-rustled brown grass or dry leaves. But a closer look revealed several different kinds and colors among them, the brown-streaked back and bright red-brown cap of Chipping Sparrows; smooth, rounded, slate-gray Dark-eyed Juncos with small pink bills; drab gray-streaked Yellow-rumped Warblers; the startling blue flash of an Eastern Bluebird’s wings; warm yellow Pine Warblers; rouge-red and brown-streaked House Finches; and even a gray-toned Eastern Phoebe. Pine Warblers trilled their songs from nearby trees. Northern Cardinals sang. Carolina Wrens, Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice chattered and sang. A flock of blackbirds that sounded like mostly Red-winged Blackbirds, further up the road, made a constant background clamor of chucking calls and the Red-wings’ rusty, ringing ker-EEEEEE. Several American Robins were widely scattered out in treetops and neighboring yards.

One Robin and one smaller, paler bird were walking around in weedy grass along the edges of the roadside, at the foot of a driveway, and inspecting puddles of rainwater in the road. The smaller bird was a Hermit Thrush – recognizable even from a distance because of its light brown color and erect posture, the way it stands with its head up and bill slightly raised. I stopped to watch because I haven’t often seen a Hermit Thrush this winter.

Beside the sturdy, confident dark gray-black and brick-red Robin, the smaller Hermit Thrush looked almost insubstantial and frail, and its coloring intensified this appearance – compared with the bold, solid colors of the Robin, the Hermit Thrush’s subtle brown tones looked almost ghostly in the gray, misty light, the quiet appearance living up to its name. Its back was olive-brown, the tail dull cinnamon, the eye looked round and watchful, the head held erect with the bill turned up. Dark spots clustered high on the chest and throat.

For a while, the Robin kept chasing the Thrush away from whatever it considered its space, but the Hermit Thrush just scurried a little further away each time, not going far, and continued to peck in the grass and puddles, then raised its head and looked around. When I finally got too close, it flew up into the low branches of a small tree draped in withered vines and stayed there, flicking its wings, and raising and slowly lowering its tail.

Robins are easy to see. There are lots of them, and they’re out in the open, in treetops, in the grass, flying over, vocal and social – fine birds with appealing personality and a beautiful song. But a Hermit Thrush is much less common and not so sociable or vocal. Mostly solitary in the winter here, they often stay hidden in bushes and shrubs or unobtrusively feeding with other species of birds on the ground. Unlike Robins or Blackbirds, they don’t congregate in large flocks, though they do often forage in the same areas with feeding flocks of mixed species – though I’ve also often watched a Hermit Thrush in the winter – around our yard and in other places, too – that seems to follow pretty much its own individual and solitary pattern each day.

While a Hermit Thrush usually doesn’t sing in the winter, it makes a low but rich, expressive chup call, typically heard from a shrubby area or low in the branches of a tree where one has taken refuge. It’s an easy call to recognize once learned, and it’s nice to know they’re around, even when not seen.

Early on a clear, spring-like morning in the first week of January, the sun was just about to rise as I walked up the driveway for the Sunday paper. The air felt barely cool. The grass and shrubs were wet from light rain overnight. Several small birds chattered and flew around the front yard – all the usual suspects, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren and Downy Woodpecker. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet flew into a Savannah holly right beside me, flashing a sliver of red on its crown. A Mourning Dove flew up on whistling wings from the ground. Dark-eyed Juncos fled from spot to spot among the dark leaves of wax myrtles along the driveway.

But the clear highlight of the morning was an Eastern Towhee sitting near the top of a large crape myrtle by the mailbox, singing Drink-your tea! Drink-tea! Drink-your-tea! The song was musical and ringing, with a light, delicate quality that seemed a little different from the Towhee’s usual rich, mellow tones – but maybe it was the setting, the fresh, early-morning light and air. In big, bold patches of color – coal-black back and head, red-orange flanks and white belly – the Towhee glowed like a bright flag caught among the dry, pale brown branches in the top of the bush.

He sang, apparently undisturbed, all the while I sauntered up the driveway, stopped right beside the crape myrtle and picked up the paper, and walked back down the driveway to the porch.

Since then he’s been singing from the same spot almost every morning – at least every morning when I’ve been up and out early enough to notice. Occasionally, a female Towhee joins him in the branches of the same bush, or – more often – she sits nearby, screened among the leaves of the wax myrtles.

For some reason, Eastern Towhees are songbirds I far too often overlook. Often when I’m making notes about the birds I’ve seen on a walk, a Towhee is the last bird I think of – the one I’m most likely to forget. And I don’t know why. It’s a beautiful bird, with its striking colors and dark red eye – black, red-orange and white in the male; warm brown, a more subdued red-orange and white in the female. Its song is one of the most familiar and pleasing birdsongs, confident and strong, as bold as its colors – but more nuanced, with a richly trilled quality to the notes. And its calls are equally nuanced – a full-throated, burry chur-WHEE, and a good many interesting variations.

The easy answer to why it’s often overlooked is that Towhees spend most of their time hidden in or under thick shrubs and underbrush. The sound of their scratching in the leaves, searching for food, is often the only way you might know they’re around. But that’s true of a lot of birds I don’t overlook, many are more often heard than seen. Somehow it seems to me that even though their songs and calls are so familiar a part of the background, for some reason Eastern Towhees don’t usually stand out. They blend.

Eastern Towhees are widely distributed, and are year-round residents here. I’ve found them in shrubby habitats everywhere from the southeastern coastal marshes, to the top of mountains in North Georgia. I well remember sitting on the top of a mountain after a hike one rainy morning in the spring and listening to an Eastern Towhee sing – after a moment of puzzling over what the birdsong was, because we weren’t expecting to find one there – one of the most familiar of birdsongs, but we didn’t immediately recognize it. They’re at home in rural old fields and pastures, and in suburban yards, but even there, they are perhaps not so much noticed as other birds like cardinals and mockingbirds.

I’m not sure how they do it, with their plump, fairly large size; bold, bright colors; animated behavior with intriguing personality; plenty of noisy scratching in the leaves, and full-throated, frequent singing and calling – but they really know how to blend in with their surroundings, in quite remarkable ways.

Early evening on the Winter Solstice, December 22 of last year, was dark gray, misty and wet. A warm rain had fallen for most of the day but had stopped for at least a short break. The bare branches of oaks, tulip poplars and pecans stood black and bleak against low, foggy clouds. Crickets were singing, grass looked green even in the fading light, and lots of small birds foraged in grassy yards and flew from tree to tree, most of them little more than dark, indistinct silhouettes, though I’m sure there were Chipping Sparrows, Eastern Bluebirds, House Finches and maybe Eastern Phoebe and Pine and Yellow-rumped Warblers. I heard the soft ringing jingles of Dark-eyed Juncos, and the clear bright mew of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, the chatter of Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees, chips of Yellow-rumped Warblers, tseets of White-throated Sparrows and peeps of Northern Cardinals, the songs and trills of Carolina Wrens and rattle of a Red-bellied Woodpecker.

I was on my way home from a late afternoon walk, passing through a lane of trees and bushes where sparrows, cardinals, towhees and thrashers were still scratching around in the leaves under shrubs, when I heard an agitated chattering of small birds behind me. I turned around and saw a very large dark shape on a bare branch of a pecan tree at the edge of the road. At first I thought it was a hawk – but when I lifted binoculars was amazed to see a Barred Owl.

There was no mistaking it. The head was big and round, with round patterns around the eyes – no neck, a large, stocky body, with streaks on the breast and indistinct bars in the wings. The feathered head and round owl face looked spectral and hypnotic, other-worldly, especially in the gray, misty light.

The Owl looked my way and seemed to lower its head and push it forward – in the way owls do – then it turned away. I watched. And watched. It did this several times, looking toward me and then away, and I could not take my eyes away from watching. Meanwhile, a car drove past. The Owl did not fly. Several small birds fussed in a flurry all around, but none of them came close to the Owl. They kept their distance.

After several minutes, an SUV drove past, and I took that chance to try to walk a step or two closer – and the Owl spread its big broad wings and flew. I had an impression of grayish-brown and white streaks and barring, and maybe of a banded tail, and of the big round, muscular-looking head – it flapped its wings, then glided quickly out of sight, into the misty gray trees between our neighborhood and another.

It was a beautiful gift on a Winter Solstice evening, and one that I thought of often during the rest of the busy season, an antidote to the bright lights and noise of stores and shopping malls and highways where I’d been spending most of my time. Not long after I got back home and inside, the rain began again and continued, often steady and hard, for several hours, bringing in slightly cooler weather, though still unseasonably warm. Around midnight, I could still hear crickets singing through the rain.

So far this season, it’s been almost a year without winter. We’ve had a few good spells of freezing weather, with temperatures in the 20s, but most of December and January have seemed unusually mild, many days with temperatures in the 60s. For me it’s also been a period with unusually little time for birding – but there have been a few memorable sightings and days.

For the 2011 Christmas Bird Count December 17, with friends from the Oconee Rivers Audubon Society, the weather could not have been better – clear and cold in the morning, sunny and a little warmer for the rest of the day. Our count included a Hermit Thrush, at least two White-breasted Nuthatches, a good many Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets, a Cooper’s Hawk, a Hairy Woodpecker, four Field Sparrows perched together in a bush as if they were posing for a picture – and stunning, closeup views of a Red-shouldered Hawk sitting low in the branches of a small tree near the Oconee River, early in the morning.

But the highlight of the day for me came at the very end, as the sun was going down. On a high utility wire over a large, quiet field of weeds and tall grasses and briars – and full of sparrows – sat an American Kestrel.

When my friend Marianne Happek and I first saw it, I thought it was a Mourning Dove – embarrassing to admit, but true. It was silhouetted against an orange sky, with the sun about to go down. “No – look at the head,” Marianne said. “It’s not little. And the tail. It’s a Kestrel.”

And so it was – when we walked to a spot with a better view, I could see it then. And it stayed in the same spot, perched on the wire overlooking the field, for 30 minutes or more, the whole time we were at this location. We had come there looking for sparrows, mainly – and found many, including White-throated, Field, Song and Savannah Sparrows. But while Marianne waded with determination into the briar-filled weeds in search of more sparrows and better views, I stood on the edge and mostly watched the Kestrel.

My view of it was never very clear, because of the light, but as the sun went down, its back and tail glowed russet-red. It was a small but almost chunky bird with a very long tail and what appeared to be rather long folded wings. Once it fanned its tail, preening, and the last rays of the sun shone through the orange-rufous feathers. Bold black patterns marked a white face. Even though I felt frustrated not to be able to see all the details more clearly, especially the vivid colors of its plumage, it was still a rare sight, especially in the magical light of sundown and twilight, with the quiet sounds of the sparrow field below.

The sun went down and light faded quickly, from orange to paler orange and buff and soft gray. The tseet, chink, tsit, and chip notes of sparrows came from the grasses and weeds, birds settling in for the night. When we finally left, calling it a day, the Kestrel still perched in the same spot on the wire.

A small gray head striped with soft, reddish-brown was all I could see at first, the top part of a small brown sparrow scratching around in a matted pile of wet leaves in the corner of a yard, with three Dark-eyed Juncos. As the rest of the little bird came into view, I saw what I had suspected, and was pleasantly surprised to find – a Field Sparrow.

As their name suggests, Field Sparrows used to be so common in the pastures and old farm fields around here that I paid them little attention. Now they’ve become much less common here because suburban development has replaced much of the brushy, second-growth habitat they prefer. Although still considered common, their populations are declining throughout most of their range in the eastern U.S.

A Field Sparrow is a study in muted colors. Often described as dull and drab, it can easily blend in with the scrubby, grassy kind of habitat it prefers. But a closer look shows subtle coloring in earth tones with the look of soft-brushed suede. The dove-gray head and face are marked with stripes of warm sienna. The back and wings are darker brown and streaked, with reddish tones, the breast is a plain, pale gray or buff. A thin white ring around the eye gives it an alert look. Its small pink bill and pink legs are distinctive, and among the easiest ways to identify it. The tail is rather long.

Altogether its appearance is quiet and gentle, though I don’t know if its behavior reflects this look. Its song is simply lovely – a clear, light whistled series of notes that start out long and slow, teew – teew – teew, and build into a rapid crescendo of silvery bouncing notes, like a ping-pong ball. It’s a sunny, airy song that dances up over an old field or pasture in the summer like a butterfly.

This one was quiet, of course, in the winter, moving with quick, delicate focus, flicking small pieces of leaves and debris aside with its bill, searching for food.

On a cool, spring-like morning big sweeps of cirrus clouds spread across an open, soft-blue, sunlit sky. A small, compact hawk with a long slender tail was one of the first birds I saw as I started out on a late-morning walk. Flying just over the treetops it came toward me and circled around, directly overhead – a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Its compact shape, with relatively small head, broad wings that arch slightly forward, long narrow tail with a very thin white band at the squarish tip – all could be seen with unusual clarity and detail. It’s one of the best and longest views I’ve ever enjoyed of a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Its head looked brown, the breast ruddy-orange, the wings richly barred in black and white, the tail with bands of dark and lighter gray, white on the tip. Once it fanned the tail out as it circled, but most of the time it was held long and narrow.

As it flew, its long thin legs were not tucked up against the body, but were held slightly out, as if kind of trailing along.

Its pattern of flight at first was a quick flap-flap-flap – glide, and as it began to make wide circles and climb, it flapped less often and soared on outspread wings, swiftly rising higher, until it was barely a sliver in the blue.

It looked like a good day for soaring. A little further on, in a more heavily wooded area of the neighborhood, I heard the kee-yer calls of a Red-shouldered Hawk from somewhere not far away, maybe hidden by the tree-line.

And several minutes later, three Red-tailed Hawks soared and circled, at least one of them hoarsely screaming, maybe because they were being harassed at first by several cawing Crows. As the Hawks climbed higher, the Crows seemed to lose interest and drifted away. The Hawks looked glorious, their deep brown backs, pale undersides and dull-red tails glowing.