Indigo Bunting, White-eyed Vireo and Blue Grosbeak in the Old Field
This morning – warm and sunny again – a Great Blue Heron flew majestically over the old field, heading west. We don’t see them often, just one now and then, passing by. An Indigo Bunting chanted its sweet-sweet, chew-chew, sweet-sweet song from near the top of a pine on the edge of the power cut in the field; a White-eyed Vireo sang chick-a-periooo-chick from the deep in the shadows of a thicket of privet and vines. The prickly purple heads of thistles dotted the field, and small orange and yellow butterflies fluttered through tall tan grass, scattered yellow asters and lots of dusty-white Queen Anne’s lace. A boldly colored black, red-orange and white Eastern Towhee, with a gleaming ruby-red eye, sat in the edge of a large bush and sang Drink-TEE.
A Blue Grosbeak sang in the middle part of the field, around the power cut at first, then it flew from treetop to treetop as I walked along. Its back was usually toward me, and it looked rather brown, so I think it was a sub-adult, and not the full deep-blue one I saw as part of a pair – I haven’t yet seen them again. But this one was singing and singing and I could see its big silver beak when it turned its head from the top of a chinaberry or a pine or a wild cherry tree.
As I walked back home through the neighborhood, an Eastern Bluebird female flew out of the newspaper box beside the road where they’re trying to nest again – almost every time I walk past, even if I try to walk way over on the other side and not disturb her, she flies out. Bluebirds seem to be everywhere, lots of them, flashing their bright colors and singing their blurry songs. Cardinals, Chipping Sparrows, House Finches, Mockingbirds and Brown Thrashers also sang, here and one or two effervescent House Wrens. A Downy Woodpecker whinnied, and two Eastern Phoebes hunted from low branches.