Birding Notes

Early on a clear, spring-like morning in the first week of January, the sun was just about to rise as I walked up the driveway for the Sunday paper. The air felt barely cool. The grass and shrubs were wet from light rain overnight. Several small birds chattered and flew around the front yard – all the usual suspects, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren and Downy Woodpecker. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet flew into a Savannah holly right beside me, flashing a sliver of red on its crown. A Mourning Dove flew up on whistling wings from the ground. Dark-eyed Juncos fled from spot to spot among the dark leaves of wax myrtles along the driveway.

But the clear highlight of the morning was an Eastern Towhee sitting near the top of a large crape myrtle by the mailbox, singing Drink-your tea! Drink-tea! Drink-your-tea! The song was musical and ringing, with a light, delicate quality that seemed a little different from the Towhee’s usual rich, mellow tones – but maybe it was the setting, the fresh, early-morning light and air. In big, bold patches of color – coal-black back and head, red-orange flanks and white belly – the Towhee glowed like a bright flag caught among the dry, pale brown branches in the top of the bush.

He sang, apparently undisturbed, all the while I sauntered up the driveway, stopped right beside the crape myrtle and picked up the paper, and walked back down the driveway to the porch.

Since then he’s been singing from the same spot almost every morning – at least every morning when I’ve been up and out early enough to notice. Occasionally, a female Towhee joins him in the branches of the same bush, or – more often – she sits nearby, screened among the leaves of the wax myrtles.

For some reason, Eastern Towhees are songbirds I far too often overlook. Often when I’m making notes about the birds I’ve seen on a walk, a Towhee is the last bird I think of – the one I’m most likely to forget. And I don’t know why. It’s a beautiful bird, with its striking colors and dark red eye – black, red-orange and white in the male; warm brown, a more subdued red-orange and white in the female. Its song is one of the most familiar and pleasing birdsongs, confident and strong, as bold as its colors – but more nuanced, with a richly trilled quality to the notes. And its calls are equally nuanced – a full-throated, burry chur-WHEE, and a good many interesting variations.

The easy answer to why it’s often overlooked is that Towhees spend most of their time hidden in or under thick shrubs and underbrush. The sound of their scratching in the leaves, searching for food, is often the only way you might know they’re around. But that’s true of a lot of birds I don’t overlook, many are more often heard than seen. Somehow it seems to me that even though their songs and calls are so familiar a part of the background, for some reason Eastern Towhees don’t usually stand out. They blend.

Eastern Towhees are widely distributed, and are year-round residents here. I’ve found them in shrubby habitats everywhere from the southeastern coastal marshes, to the top of mountains in North Georgia. I well remember sitting on the top of a mountain after a hike one rainy morning in the spring and listening to an Eastern Towhee sing – after a moment of puzzling over what the birdsong was, because we weren’t expecting to find one there – one of the most familiar of birdsongs, but we didn’t immediately recognize it. They’re at home in rural old fields and pastures, and in suburban yards, but even there, they are perhaps not so much noticed as other birds like cardinals and mockingbirds.

I’m not sure how they do it, with their plump, fairly large size; bold, bright colors; animated behavior with intriguing personality; plenty of noisy scratching in the leaves, and full-throated, frequent singing and calling – but they really know how to blend in with their surroundings, in quite remarkable ways.

Early evening on the Winter Solstice, December 22 of last year, was dark gray, misty and wet. A warm rain had fallen for most of the day but had stopped for at least a short break. The bare branches of oaks, tulip poplars and pecans stood black and bleak against low, foggy clouds. Crickets were singing, grass looked green even in the fading light, and lots of small birds foraged in grassy yards and flew from tree to tree, most of them little more than dark, indistinct silhouettes, though I’m sure there were Chipping Sparrows, Eastern Bluebirds, House Finches and maybe Eastern Phoebe and Pine and Yellow-rumped Warblers. I heard the soft ringing jingles of Dark-eyed Juncos, and the clear bright mew of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, the chatter of Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees, chips of Yellow-rumped Warblers, tseets of White-throated Sparrows and peeps of Northern Cardinals, the songs and trills of Carolina Wrens and rattle of a Red-bellied Woodpecker.

I was on my way home from a late afternoon walk, passing through a lane of trees and bushes where sparrows, cardinals, towhees and thrashers were still scratching around in the leaves under shrubs, when I heard an agitated chattering of small birds behind me. I turned around and saw a very large dark shape on a bare branch of a pecan tree at the edge of the road. At first I thought it was a hawk – but when I lifted binoculars was amazed to see a Barred Owl.

There was no mistaking it. The head was big and round, with round patterns around the eyes – no neck, a large, stocky body, with streaks on the breast and indistinct bars in the wings. The feathered head and round owl face looked spectral and hypnotic, other-worldly, especially in the gray, misty light.

The Owl looked my way and seemed to lower its head and push it forward – in the way owls do – then it turned away. I watched. And watched. It did this several times, looking toward me and then away, and I could not take my eyes away from watching. Meanwhile, a car drove past. The Owl did not fly. Several small birds fussed in a flurry all around, but none of them came close to the Owl. They kept their distance.

After several minutes, an SUV drove past, and I took that chance to try to walk a step or two closer – and the Owl spread its big broad wings and flew. I had an impression of grayish-brown and white streaks and barring, and maybe of a banded tail, and of the big round, muscular-looking head – it flapped its wings, then glided quickly out of sight, into the misty gray trees between our neighborhood and another.

It was a beautiful gift on a Winter Solstice evening, and one that I thought of often during the rest of the busy season, an antidote to the bright lights and noise of stores and shopping malls and highways where I’d been spending most of my time. Not long after I got back home and inside, the rain began again and continued, often steady and hard, for several hours, bringing in slightly cooler weather, though still unseasonably warm. Around midnight, I could still hear crickets singing through the rain.

So far this season, it’s been almost a year without winter. We’ve had a few good spells of freezing weather, with temperatures in the 20s, but most of December and January have seemed unusually mild, many days with temperatures in the 60s. For me it’s also been a period with unusually little time for birding – but there have been a few memorable sightings and days.

For the 2011 Christmas Bird Count December 17, with friends from the Oconee Rivers Audubon Society, the weather could not have been better – clear and cold in the morning, sunny and a little warmer for the rest of the day. Our count included a Hermit Thrush, at least two White-breasted Nuthatches, a good many Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets, a Cooper’s Hawk, a Hairy Woodpecker, four Field Sparrows perched together in a bush as if they were posing for a picture – and stunning, closeup views of a Red-shouldered Hawk sitting low in the branches of a small tree near the Oconee River, early in the morning.

But the highlight of the day for me came at the very end, as the sun was going down. On a high utility wire over a large, quiet field of weeds and tall grasses and briars – and full of sparrows – sat an American Kestrel.

When my friend Marianne Happek and I first saw it, I thought it was a Mourning Dove – embarrassing to admit, but true. It was silhouetted against an orange sky, with the sun about to go down. “No – look at the head,” Marianne said. “It’s not little. And the tail. It’s a Kestrel.”

And so it was – when we walked to a spot with a better view, I could see it then. And it stayed in the same spot, perched on the wire overlooking the field, for 30 minutes or more, the whole time we were at this location. We had come there looking for sparrows, mainly – and found many, including White-throated, Field, Song and Savannah Sparrows. But while Marianne waded with determination into the briar-filled weeds in search of more sparrows and better views, I stood on the edge and mostly watched the Kestrel.

My view of it was never very clear, because of the light, but as the sun went down, its back and tail glowed russet-red. It was a small but almost chunky bird with a very long tail and what appeared to be rather long folded wings. Once it fanned its tail, preening, and the last rays of the sun shone through the orange-rufous feathers. Bold black patterns marked a white face. Even though I felt frustrated not to be able to see all the details more clearly, especially the vivid colors of its plumage, it was still a rare sight, especially in the magical light of sundown and twilight, with the quiet sounds of the sparrow field below.

The sun went down and light faded quickly, from orange to paler orange and buff and soft gray. The tseet, chink, tsit, and chip notes of sparrows came from the grasses and weeds, birds settling in for the night. When we finally left, calling it a day, the Kestrel still perched in the same spot on the wire.

A small gray head striped with soft, reddish-brown was all I could see at first, the top part of a small brown sparrow scratching around in a matted pile of wet leaves in the corner of a yard, with three Dark-eyed Juncos. As the rest of the little bird came into view, I saw what I had suspected, and was pleasantly surprised to find – a Field Sparrow.

As their name suggests, Field Sparrows used to be so common in the pastures and old farm fields around here that I paid them little attention. Now they’ve become much less common here because suburban development has replaced much of the brushy, second-growth habitat they prefer. Although still considered common, their populations are declining throughout most of their range in the eastern U.S.

A Field Sparrow is a study in muted colors. Often described as dull and drab, it can easily blend in with the scrubby, grassy kind of habitat it prefers. But a closer look shows subtle coloring in earth tones with the look of soft-brushed suede. The dove-gray head and face are marked with stripes of warm sienna. The back and wings are darker brown and streaked, with reddish tones, the breast is a plain, pale gray or buff. A thin white ring around the eye gives it an alert look. Its small pink bill and pink legs are distinctive, and among the easiest ways to identify it. The tail is rather long.

Altogether its appearance is quiet and gentle, though I don’t know if its behavior reflects this look. Its song is simply lovely – a clear, light whistled series of notes that start out long and slow, teew – teew – teew, and build into a rapid crescendo of silvery bouncing notes, like a ping-pong ball. It’s a sunny, airy song that dances up over an old field or pasture in the summer like a butterfly.

This one was quiet, of course, in the winter, moving with quick, delicate focus, flicking small pieces of leaves and debris aside with its bill, searching for food.

On a cool, spring-like morning big sweeps of cirrus clouds spread across an open, soft-blue, sunlit sky. A small, compact hawk with a long slender tail was one of the first birds I saw as I started out on a late-morning walk. Flying just over the treetops it came toward me and circled around, directly overhead – a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Its compact shape, with relatively small head, broad wings that arch slightly forward, long narrow tail with a very thin white band at the squarish tip – all could be seen with unusual clarity and detail. It’s one of the best and longest views I’ve ever enjoyed of a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Its head looked brown, the breast ruddy-orange, the wings richly barred in black and white, the tail with bands of dark and lighter gray, white on the tip. Once it fanned the tail out as it circled, but most of the time it was held long and narrow.

As it flew, its long thin legs were not tucked up against the body, but were held slightly out, as if kind of trailing along.

Its pattern of flight at first was a quick flap-flap-flap – glide, and as it began to make wide circles and climb, it flapped less often and soared on outspread wings, swiftly rising higher, until it was barely a sliver in the blue.

It looked like a good day for soaring. A little further on, in a more heavily wooded area of the neighborhood, I heard the kee-yer calls of a Red-shouldered Hawk from somewhere not far away, maybe hidden by the tree-line.

And several minutes later, three Red-tailed Hawks soared and circled, at least one of them hoarsely screaming, maybe because they were being harassed at first by several cawing Crows. As the Hawks climbed higher, the Crows seemed to lose interest and drifted away. The Hawks looked glorious, their deep brown backs, pale undersides and dull-red tails glowing.

Around four o’clock one sunny, cool afternoon last weekend, I noticed some birds in the trees outside one of our windows, and when I cautiously pulled up the blind, a tiny, bright Ruby-crowned Kinglet was moving through the branches of a water oak right at eye level, not three feet away. Its ruby crown didn’t show – but it was spritely and pretty, a clear gray-green, with white wingbars and white ring around the eye.

Further out in the yard, Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice were going back and forth from trees to both of two feeders. White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos scratched in the leaves below the feeders and around the shrubs. Chipping Sparrows were feeding in the grass up near the roadside. Several Yellow-rumped Warblers flew from spot to spot in the trees, and House Finches perched on branches and visited the feeders. One Eastern Phoebe hunted from low limbs. Two Downy Woodpeckers checked over the bark of an oak, and a female Eastern Bluebird preened on a branch in the sun.

Two Yellow-rumped Warblers and one male House Finch perched together on the rim of the bird bath, sipped water, hopped in and out – and then one Yellow-rumped Warbler and the House Finch both plunged all the way in and fluttered their wings and bathed vigorously. This time of day – around 4:00 in the afternoon – often seems to be a popular time to come for baths, and though no bluebirds were here while I was watching this time, they’re among the most frequent afternoon bathers.

The most colorful part of the party – at least from my perspective in a second-floor window – came when about a dozen Cedar Waxwings suddenly appeared in a rush and flurry – almost hurtling down out of nowhere – into three large cleyera bushes close to the house. They dived into the glossy green leaves and rustled around so that the bushes were all aflutter with them. Three or four at a time came out into view, then disappeared again, and one emerged and sat briefly still and stunning – an unusually close and beautiful view. The taupe-brown plumage looked so smooth it might have been polished. On the face, feathery lines of white edged the black mask; an enameled drop of red touched the wing and yellow rimmed the tip of the tail. Altogether I could only breathe, “wow.” They did not stay long enough.

This is the most activity I’ve seen around our front yard so far this season. Many days this fall I’ve looked or stepped outside and could see or hear not a single bird – something so unusual I still am puzzled. This is the first year ever when there’ve been so few birds so often. So it was a particular pleasure to watch all this activity, and my only complaint was that I could hear nothing, because the windows were closed, and felt sure I was missing still other birds. But to open a window, even a crack, or to go downstairs and out the front door, would have sent all the birds flying, so I just enjoyed a silent show. The one exception was a pair of Carolina Wrens in nearby branches. The male’s full-throated song and the female’s rich trill came right through the glass – quite unlike the small chips, mews, peeps, chitters and other dry sounds of most of our winter birds.

On the same morning in early December – mostly quiet all around – a feeding flock of several dozen small birds spread out across a large grassy yard under several pecan trees, rustling around like dry brown leaves, so low to the ground and kind of in the shadows, they were all but invisible, even though there were so many. I might not even have seen them except for one bright yellow Pine Warbler among them that brought them into focus – lots of Chipping Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, several Eastern Bluebirds, a few Dark-eyed Juncos and House Finches swarmed over the grass, creeping and pecking. Two Carolina Wrens trilled and burbled around the trunk of a tree. An Eastern Phoebe even fed on the ground with all the other birds, searching the grass and leaves, foraging like the sparrows, making me wonder if maybe the cold of the early morning had made ground insects sluggish and easy pickings.

Then something startled part of the flock and Chipping Sparrows, Bluebirds and Finches flashed up, several at a time, into the low branches of nearby small trees. Dark-eyed Juncos scattered into a thicket, jingling with low, muffled alarm calls. Yellow-rumped Warblers fled in all directions, calling check as they went. The Phoebe flew to a low branch, bobbed its tail, and flew off to hover at a small hollow in the trunk of a tree, coming away with an insect, probably plucked from a spider’s web there.

About ten o’clock on a cold, sunny December morning, with a crisp blue and white sky, two Red-tailed Hawks sat in the upper branches of a large red oak just down the road from our house. This red oak is a favorite perch of many birds, including a Scarlet Tanager that sometimes sings there in the summer. The oak stands alone at the crest of the hill, spreading its craggy branches wide and dominating the view.

The limbs of the red oak are completely bare now, and the large, pale shapes of the two Red-tailed Hawks glowed softly against the blue sky, visible from some distance away. One faced toward me, and toward the sun, as I walked by. The other – slightly smaller – sat very close to the first, on a little higher branch, its back turned toward me, but its head in profile. They sat quite still as I passed, and did not fly even when I stopped to lift binoculars for a closer look. A loose band of dark brown streaks crossed the broad, cream-toned chest. The head and back were dark brown, flecked only a little with white – the plumage looked almost smooth. I didn’t linger long because I didn’t want to disturb them.

When I came back, after more than an hour, the two hawks were still there, sitting in the same spot, though now they both faced in the same direction, toward me and toward the sun. The size difference now was even more apparent – and I assume it was probably a pair, the female noticeably larger than the male.

I stayed outside for almost an hour longer, sitting in a chair on our front porch, watching the hawks and watching other smaller, busier birds around the feeders and bushes in the yard. When I went inside at noon, the two hawks still were sitting in the same place in the Red Oak tree.

Their quiet, majestic presence impressed me, in part because they stayed so long, and in part because their patience stood in such contrast to the way I usually feel – busy, with a long list of things to do for the day, and a constant process of figuring out what to do when and how long I can spend on each errand or task, and almost always feeling as if there are not enough hours in the day. But here were these two big hawks – spending hours on a cold, bright morning sitting peacefully in the sun, and watching. Their presence felt calming and wise.

On the same morning in late November, in another, more wooded part of the neighborhood, a Red-shouldered Hawk sat in the very top of a tall bare tree, near the crest of a small hill. Its coloring showed up even in the rather gray light – brown head and back, black wings flecked with white, and ruddy, reddish-orange breast.

Somewhat surprisingly, there were many active small birds around in this same area too – though maybe this particular hawk is not too much of a threat to them. Although a Red-shouldered Hawk will capture smaller birds, it more often feeds on small mammals like mice and chipmunks. Still, it seemed interesting to see the large hawk sitting conspicuously up in the treetop on a hill, overlooking a wooded area below that was lively with small birds.

I could hear the calls of what seemed to be several Golden-crowned Kinglets – all around in the pines and hardwoods, and watched two flitting around in the green needles of a pine, both showing golden-yellow crowns. Two Ruby-crowned Kinglets chattered jidit-jidit­ and one moved quickly through the low branches of pines, a tiny olive-gray bird with white wing bars and a white ring around its eye – but no ruby crown showing. Several Dark-eyed Juncos were feeding in grassy spots and flew up into low branches of trees when startled, flashing the white edges of their tails and giving soft, jingling alarm calls. Lots of Chipping Sparrows also flew up from the grass like sparks. A few Yellow-rumped Warblers flew from spot to spot. One Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, with crimson throat and crown, worked on the trunk of a young oak. A Hairy Woodpecker called from nearby in the woods several times, an emphatic, repeated peenk! – as well as Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, and a Northern Flicker. White-throated Sparrows and Carolina Wrens rustled and called in the bushes and Eastern Towhees called chur-whee. Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice chattered in the trees.

Meanwhile, the Red-shouldered Hawk sat up in its tree at the top of the hill, just looking down on the scene around it.

A solitary Great Blue Heron flew over, its long wings slowly, steadily rising and falling, a large dark-gray silent form against the paler gray-white sky.

A flock of around two or three hundred Common Grackles and other blackbirds has been a regular feature in the yards and trees in our neighborhood almost every day this November. I don’t always see the flock, but almost always can hear them sometime during the day. Among them there have been at least a few Rusty Blackbirds now and then, and on one memorable morning toward the end of the month, twenty-eight Rusty Blackbirds perched in the bare branches of a pecan tree along the edge of a yard. I think it’s the largest number of Rusty Blackbirds I’ve ever seen together, and one of the easiest to see well and clearly.

It was late in the morning on a warm, cloudy day. I could hear the loud, harsh calls of Grackles in one of the areas where they most often can be found, and as I crested a hill, I could see the silhouettes of many blackbirds in the bare-limbed trees in several yards.

They were moving in waves, a few at a time, through the trees. But in this one tree several blackbirds perched and showed no signs of leaving, even when I got very close and stopped almost directly below them. This was unusual. I counted twenty-eight birds – and all were Rusty Blackbirds, considerably smaller than Grackles, with thin pointed bills. About half were male and half female. The males looked all-black, with pale eyes, but in some I could see the rusty tinge, especially on the edges of the wings. The females were in their elegant mixed shades of brown, rust, fawn and gray, with crowns that looked reddish-chestnut, a wide buff stripe over the eye, and a smoky-dark patch and streak through the eye.

Because populations of Rusty Blackbirds have declined so dramatically and there is concern for their future, it always feels special to see them, so I stayed and watched them for at least 15 minutes, maybe more. Most were facing in the same direction, and many were preening. They made low, intimate chuck calls. All in all, it looked and sounded like a quiet midday break.

Although they had seemed to be associated with the larger flock of blackbirds, they did not move with the others but stayed in this tree, and after several minutes, all the other blackbirds had moved on and disappeared. Against a deeply quiet background then, I could hear the high, thin calls of several Cedar Waxwings in a tree across the street. An Eastern Bluebird sang some blurry notes. A Red-bellied Woodpecker and then a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker both flew into the same tree with the Rusty Blackbirds, on lower branches. A Northern Flicker’s kleer and a Downy Woodpecker’s peenk came from nearby, like sharp punctuations in the quiet. Dozens of Chipping Sparrows moved around in the grass and dead leaves in the yards.

Though I seldom get such a beautiful view of them, I finally decided it was time to leave them alone and walked on, leaving the Rusty Blackbirds still sitting in this tree, still preening and chucking softly to each other.