Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Gathering Dandelion Fluff
Late in the afternoon on a very warm, sunny day, the only bird I heard when I first stepped outside was the soft coo of a Mourning Dove. As I walked through the neighborhood under a deep blue sky with big white cumulous clouds, four Chimney Swifts twittered as they swept over, a Blue Jay cried, a Northern Cardinal sang, Crows cawed in the distance. Birds were scattered here and there – the chatter of a Carolina Chickadee, the jubilee-jubilee-jubilee song of a Carolina Wren, the rattle of a Red-bellied Woodpecker. A Pine Warbler sang in the woods, Chipping Sparrows were dotted here and there, spaced out, singing their long, level trills from small trees and shrubs in grassy yards. An Eastern Bluebird flashed its startling color as it flew across the road and into the woods.
Almost everywhere in the neighborhood was generally pretty quiet, a typical late afternoon. But then, from sweet gum trees on the edge of the woods, next to a large grassy yard, came the wheezy spee-spee calls of a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Petite and delicate, a Gnatcatcher was moving through the bright green, star-shaped leaves of very low sweet gum branches that almost brushed the grass, like a dancer in its movements, so neat and crisp, silvery-gray and white, its long, slender tail upturned and switching – gathering the fluff from dandelions. As it moved, it paused to call spee! and was answered by a second Blue-gray Gnatcatcher hidden somewhere nearby in the sweet gum trees, also quite low.
The Gnatcatcher pulled up one tuft after another, until it had a bill full of dandelion fluff, then it flew back into the dense foliage of the sweet gum trees. So – I think maybe there’s a Gnatcatcher nest somewhere not far away, maybe lined with this soft, silky fluff. I waited and watched for a while, and could hear the Gnatcatchers continue to call, but did not see them again. A Brown Thrasher came out of the low foliage to forage in the grass, looking warm red-brown in the sun.