New Birdsongs – Chipping Sparrow and Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Back at home from a few days on the coast, we arrived at night, right after a good rain, so this morning the world looked fresh with touches of green and right on the brink of Spring. Many birds were singing – Carolina Wren, Northern Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Chickadee, Eastern Phoebe, Brown Thrasher, American Robin – and the calls of Downy Woodpecker and Red-bellied Woodpecker, even the long rattle of a Hairy Woodpecker from not far away in the woods. Several American Goldfinches are still coming to the feeders, and beginning to light up with lemon-yellow color. There were the zhreeee calls of at least a few Pine Siskins still around in the treetops. And the chrup of a Hermit Thrush that I heard – though I couldn’t see it, it was somewhere near. Two Canada Geese honked as they fly over.
And a new note added to the morning chorus – the light, high, lingering trill of Chipping Sparrows. Not just one, but at least three or four were singing from different places around the yard – one perched in a low branch of a red maple tree dense with young dark-red leaves. Their songs at this time of year, especially in the early hours of the morning, seem to me to have a fresh, delicate quality that is less common as the season goes on. Before we left, Pine Warblers were singing everywhere, but now, I only heard one or two singing later in the morning, while the trills of Chipping Sparrows were everywhere.
Then another new song – the quick start and rapid, exuberant burst of notes from somewhere in a tangled privet thicket – a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.
Two dozen or more Cedar Waxwings perched in the still-bare limbs of pecan trees and came to the birdbath to bathe. A female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker stayed for a long time checking holes in the pecan trees in the front yard before a second Sapsucker, this one a male, flew in and chased her away. He stayed for a while, then – or maybe she came back. I lost track. Both are so well camouflaged against the bark of the trees. Robins squeaked and chucked. An Eastern Bluebird sang from somewhere, not too near, and I did not see one going in or coming out of the bluebird box.