Birding Notes

May has begun with hot, summer-like weather. By late morning the sun was shining in a blue sky with big white summer-day clouds, and the temperature felt well on its way toward the forecast of 90 degrees. Not my favorite weather – but the perfect setting for an Indigo Bunting singing in the old field for the first time this season.  A tiny sapphire-blue dot of a bird, it sat in the top of a pine tree, overlooking the power cut that runs through the field.  Its sweet-sweet; chew-chew; sweet-sweet rang out over the privet, kudzu, tall grasses, purple thistles, blackberry vines, Queen Anne’s lace and other weeds and wildflowers.

The warm scent of honeysuckle drifted through the air. Wild pink roses have begun to bloom in rough profusion on eroded banks and the sides of ditches. A few orange and yellow butterflies flitted here and there, not many, but one fluttering little Blue Azure along the roadside. A White-eyed Vireo, Eastern Towhee and Northern Cardinal also sang in the field – the Vireo from somewhere in a dense privet thicket. Two Red-shouldered Hawks were soaring very, very high, little more than wispy specks in the blue, though their kee-yer calls sounded clear and much closer than they were. With them, one Black Vulture soared.