Scarlet Tanager, Summer Tanager, Wood Thrush – After a Summer Rain
Late this afternoon, a thundershower and briefly heavy rain cooled off a day that had been muggy and hot. When I sat down on the screened porch, the air felt wonderfully cool and fresh, and rainwater still dripped from the trees all around, so I sat in a green, wet world. With dark-gray clouds still lingering, light seemed to be fading already, even though it was more than an hour before the sun would go down. It looked like early twilight.
The fluted notes of a Wood Thrush drifted up through the woods, and a second Wood Thrush also sang. One was closer, and slightly to the east, the other further away, to the west. The soft, ticking pik-a-tuk calls of Summer Tanagers moved through the trees much closer, on the eastern side of the yard. And the quiet, crisp chick-brrr calls of Scarlet Tanagers came from oaks on the edge of the woods, not far away. These tanager calls both are among the most alluring sounds of the spring and summer woods, little-noticed hints to the presence of the brilliant-colored and exotic birds. Just knowing they are here is a gift.
On the east side of the yard, where young trees and vines and shrubs blend into a very dense and leafy area, a Northern Parula sang its buzzy song – a small, blue-gray wood warbler with a green back and a black and dark-coral band across a yellow breast. It stayed well hidden in the leaves, but sang for several minutes.
The call of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo – which always sounds sudden and surprising – came from a treetop just inside the woods. A loud, percussive, exotic-sounding ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-cawp-cawp-cawp. A Louisiana Waterthrush whistled its bright anthem from somewhere along the creek that runs along the bottom of the wooded hill that slopes down from our back yard. And a Great Crested Flycatcher called a full-throated Breeet! from a tall pine.
To have all of these birds around our own back yard and woods this spring and summer seems to me an amazing and hard-to-believe abundance. The Summer and Scarlet Tanagers, Northern Parula, Louisiana Waterthrush, Great Crested Flycatcher and Yellow-billed Cuckoo all are neotropical migrants that are only here in the summer breeding season, and will leave for winter homes much further south in the fall. A Red-eyed Vireo often comes to sing here, too, though it’s not as frequent as the others. I’m more likely to hear its song in the mornings than late in the day. Earlier in the spring a Yellow-throated Vireo was sometimes here singing here, though I haven’t heard it in a while.
A pair of Gray Catbirds may be nesting in some of the large wax myrtles in our front yard, but I’ve only seen and heard their raspy, mewing calls and awkward, distinctive song now and then. I’m not sure they’ve stayed around.
A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird twittered as she came to the feeder just outside the porch. She sat and sipped nectar for several moments, looked up and around, sipped some more, then flew away, around the corner of the house. Northern Cardinal, Carolina Wren, Eastern Towhee all were singing too, at different times, and Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Chickadee. Red-bellied Woodpecker rattled, and Downy Woodpecker whinnied its delicate call. A White-breasted Nuthatch made small, nasal calls as it traveled over the branches and trunks. An Eastern Phoebe sang.