More and More Birdsong: Phoebe and Brown Thrasher
All weekend was warm and sunny, with temperatures this afternoon in the mid 70s, encouraging lots of birdsong and activity. The morning began with the song of an Eastern Phoebe sitting in the branches of a white oak just outside our windows, after Phoebes have been pretty quiet for the past several weeks. All day it has continued to sing and to do its chatter call around the house – so I’m hoping that maybe it’s one of a pair that might nest here again this year, after successfully raising three young Phoebes in a nest over the garage last summer.
Eastern Bluebirds were singing, and a pair is spending a lot of time around the nest box, the male sometimes sitting on top of it. On a walk through the neighborhood, I heard several others singing and saw four or five pairs together.
A Pine Warbler continues to give its musical trill all around the edge of the woods and around the house and comes to the feeder now and then. This morning for a while it sang in the branches of a water oak right over my head – he’s a bright, warm yellow, very colorful. Cardinals, Carolina Wrens, House Finches, Chickadees, Titmice – all are singing, so the mornings are beginning to sound more and more full of birdsong, especially on sunny days. A Red-shouldered Hawk called from somewhere over the woods to the east, not close. A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker made the rounds of trees in the front yard, and although I still haven’t heard one around our yard in a while, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet chattered in a thicket down the road.
Late this afternoon a Brown Thrasher sang from a low branch in a pine tree, the first time I’ve heard one sing this season. It sang for several minutes, running through several different pairs of phrases, but it sang from a perch screened by branches and pine needles and not very loudly – so maybe he’s rehearsing, not quite ready for the open stage of a treetop branch. Usually Brown Thrashers here do start singing in February, but maybe they’re a little late this year because of the cold, wet weather.
Red-tailed Hawk and Rabbit
Late this afternoon I stopped along the edge of the old field to look at a dead rabbit lying in brown grass. As I walked toward it, a Red-tailed Hawk flew out of a low perch in a tree on the edge of the field, into the open for a moment, then back into the trees, further in where the pines were denser. I looked for it and had just about given up when it flew out and across the road and away. I walked away feeling guilty about keeping the hawk from its prey, and hoping it would come back soon after I left – though with all the traffic and people around here, it must be fairly accustomed to such interruptions.