Birding Notes

The first week of July has brought more long, hot days of summer, now defined by the dry, rasping, humming, chirping, buzzing music not of birds but of insect songs and sounds – cicadas, grasshoppers, crickets, wasps, bees, flies, gnats, beetles, mosquitoes, dragonflies, katydids at night, and many more than I can name.

Birds have become so quiet at times it seems unnerving. A few still sing, but not so often, not so many at once, and some have fallen quiet. So to see and hear them takes more time and patience, a good excuse to drift into the spirit of a summer day and just be lazy – sit back in the shade and watch to see what happens.

In the mornings, a Northern Cardinal and Carolina Wren are often the only birds singing when I first go outside – not a complaint, the songs of both are music enough to make a day worthwhile. An Eastern Bluebird may murmur its blurry song from a branch near the box where a pair is feeding a second brood. A Chipping Sparrow spins a long, long level trill. A Red-bellied Woodpecker quuurrrs. An Eastern Phoebe hunts quietly from low branches around the yard. A Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in water oaks calls a wispy spee-spee. By mid-morning, the days are already hot, the sun already high and bleaching out the blue of the sky. And from somewhere ripples the soft, cool hoo-OOO-oo-oo of a Mourning Dove, a sound so common and familiar I almost don’t notice it, woven so seamlessly in with the background music of insects and barely stirring leaves.

Distant Crows caw and Blue Jays cry. And from a large oak down the street, a Summer Tanager whistles its lilting, sing-song tune over and over – it’s one of the most persistent singers lately, along with a Mockingbird that still sings exuberantly from the top of a tall Leyland cypress. Downy Woodpeckers whinny, House Wrens burble in effervescent bursts of song, Goldfinches fly over calling potato-chip and Chimney Swifts chitter, a House Finch pair comes to the bird bath, and each day there seem to be a few more American Robins foraging in large grassy, shady yards.

On several recent mornings, the song of a Wood Thrush has floated up from woods along one of the creeks that run through our neighborhood. Its ee-oh-lay, ee-oh-loo-eee sounds like an enchanted flute, not just a song, but a poem, lyrical, shining and shadowed, impossibly beautiful, complex and haunting.

It’s never close enough to see, staying hidden far down in the woods near the creek – a Robin-like bird with a shaded-brown back and bold dark spots on the breast. Like an increasing number of woodland birds that used to be common, a Wood Thrush now is heard much less often here. It feels lucky this summer to have at least one around.

In the same low, wooded area near the creek, an Acadian Flycatcher casts its sharp, thin wheet-sit. A Red-eyed Vireo sings, a slower, less urgent refrain than earlier in the spring. A Red-shouldered Hawk cries kee-yer, kee-yer, soaring somewhere beyond the trees. A pair of Brown-headed Nuthatches exchange squeaky calls as they forage in tall pines.

A little further up the road, up a hill and into a more open area, two Barn Swallows swoop around a house with a large covered porch and the large open grassy yard.

Early one afternoon, a female Scarlet Tanager flew to the shepherd’s crook that holds a large green fern on the rail of our back deck. We had just finished lunch and were sitting at the kitchen table, and I saw her from there, through the glass in the door. Muted yellow with olive wings, a relatively small thick bill, she looked pretty in an understated way. After a few moments, she flew to a table then to the top of an umbrella, to the deck rail – and away.

A male Scarlet Tanager still sings nearby now and then, but not constantly, and occasionally I hear their chick-brrrr calls in the trees, an expressive, electric call, a sound that’s more than a sound, a shivering, pleasant, confiding feeling.

The back deck seems to be a favorite spot for several birds – or maybe it’s just that it’s an easy spot for us to watch through the kitchen windows. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds come and go from the feeder frequently, and the moat in the middle of the feeder – filled with water to discourage ants – has definitely become a favorite watering hole for Tufted Titmice, Carolina Chickadees, American Goldfinch – and at least once, a Brown-headed Nuthatch. I’ve put a shallow clay saucer of water nearby on the deck, in the shade, but so far the small birds still prefer hanging upside down on the wire that holds the hummingbird feeder to sip from the little moat.

A Great Crested Flycatcher continues to come to the sunny part of the deck almost every day around noon (and maybe at other times, too, and it’s just around noon that we notice) – it’s a very regular visitor. It sits on the rail or sometimes on the floor of the deck, in full sun, lowers its body and spreads out its cinnamon-edged wings and long cinnamon tail, turning its head slightly upwards and sits languid and almost motionless, soaking up the sun for several minutes at a time – but flashing away in a heartbeat if startled. I don’t know if it’s the same one every time, or if maybe a male and a female both come, separately, since I first saw two sunbathing together.

A Carolina Chickadee exhibited the same, or quite similar behavior one afternoon, fanning out its tail feathers widely, spreading its wings and sitting low on the sun-warmed wood – but it stayed only briefly.

Two or three Carolina Wrens come often to search for insects and spiders around the plants and railings on the deck, sometimes quiet, but most often trilling, chattering, burbling or pausing to sing.

In the old field, both a young Blue Grosbeak and an Indigo Bunting continue to sing. This morning the Blue Grosbeak sang from the top of a chinaberry tree, called chink and flew down to the top of a tall ragged weed near the roadside, as if to say good morning, switching his tail vigorously, and singing again. A first-summer male, he remains mostly brownish in color, with a smoky-blue head and inky blue smudges of color in the brown. The Indigo Bunting is a tiny brilliant dot of sapphire blue that usually isn’t hard to find because he chants his sweet-sweet, chew-chew, sweet-chew tirelessly, usually from the very top of a tree or shrub.

Two Red-tailed Hawks sat on utility poles overlooking the field and the highway beyond, and a Black Vulture sat on another pole, distant from the hawks, with its wings held out to warm them in the sun. A Pine Warbler also sings in the field, and Eastern Towhees – birds I way too often overlook. Often one perches in the top of a vine-draped tree to sing, bold and colorful black, red-orange and white. Several Mockingbirds live in and around the field, sometimes one sings, but not so often. Mostly they hunt in the weeds and grass, raising wings to flash white wing patches, and perch on the wires with Mourning Doves and sometimes an Eastern Phoebe.

The field itself looks pretty ragged and rough. Deep purple stiff verbena grows low along part of the roadside, a few white asters and dandelions here and there, some wild potato-vine flowers – large white flowers with burgundy centers – out in the power cut, and the grasses are thick. But weeks of very hot weather have taken a toll on a lot of the trees and vines and other plants, I think. The weeds look dry and stunted and tough, and even the kudzu is barely spreading so far. Thunderstorms have brought good soaking rains fairly often – we’ve been lucky with that. But the heat has been unrelenting. It’s the hottest summer I can ever remember – temperatures stay above 90 and often above the mid 90s for weeks at a time.

In long, soft orange twilights, fireflies flash low around the shrubs, under the trees and out in the grass. The air stays warm and humid, with the summer scent of grass, but with cool currents that drift up from low, shady spots. Two bats circle over the open part of our yard, up at the top of the driveway, where we often walk to see the end of day and watch for the first stars to come out. Cicadas keep singing long after sunset, but gradually, as the light very slowly fades, they fall silent and the katydids begin to sing. One evening we watched as a female Eastern Bluebird made several late, last trips in and out of the bluebird box in the deepening shadows. The white blossoms of crepe myrtles and impatiens glow in the dark as if they had captured light and now reflect it.

On a perfect Fourth of July afternoon, hot and hazy, with blurry white and pale orange clouds in a bleached-out barely blue sky, a Mississippi Kite came into view just over the trees toward the south from our deck. A sliver of dark wings and fan-shaped tail, its long slender shape and graceful flight were distinctive. After a couple of minutes, it was joined by a second Mississippi Kite. Both sailed around in large circles several times, quite high toward the southeast, and drifted away in that direction after maybe about five minutes in all.

This is only the second time this year I’ve seen Mississippi Kites here. The first was on the Summer Solstice – then no more until today. Of course, they might have been around when I’m not out, because here in our neighborhood they’re only passing over, so it’s luck when I see them. But I haven’t seen other reports of Kites in this area yet this summer.

In the heat, not much else was stirring. Two Carolina Chickadees came to the hummingbird feeder, fussing noisily, to drink from the moat. A Red-bellied Woodpecker rattled in the woods. Grasshoppers sang, but only a few cicadas now and then. A dragonfly flew over. A Phoebe hunted very low around the back yard. A Summer Tanager sang from somewhere down the street. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird twittered as it came to the feeder briefly – then zipped over and hovered to check me out, then zoomed away. A Mourning Dove cooed.

Dark clouds began to gather in the southwest, and a distant rumble of thunder drifted closer. For a while it seemed the storm might pass to the south of us, but then the wind picked up, clouds covered the sun, and after a big crack of thunder, I gathered up my things and went inside, and watched as a good hard drenching rain fell for half an hour or more. We’ve been lucky enough to get several of these late-afternoon thundershowers, a saving grace in the long stretch of very hot weather.

Well, we missed the rise of the full moon tonight. After a day that was all sunshine and heat and blue sky with high white fluffy clouds, the western sky turned into a wall of dark, bruised purple, and within minutes a fierce summer storm blew in. Somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00, a good hour before the sun would have set, it looked as dark as night outside, and trees were tossing in the wind. Then the rain came, and the power went out.

We lit candles and our one oil lamp, and ate dinner by their light as lightning and thunder snapped outside the windows, and sheets of gray rain pelted down, thrown by the wind against the glass. Later, with the power still out, we lit more candles and opened windows, letting in damp, cool air and the scent of wet green leaves, and sat down to read by candlelight. Rain continued to fall, steady but not so hard, and thunder continued to rumble for another hour or two, sounding like Rip Van Winkle’s bowling balls and pins, but more and more distant. And I realized I was in no hurry for the power to come back on. The luxurious quiet and the soft glow of candlelight seemed so gentle and relaxing, compared with electric light and TV and all the other machines.

When the power came back on, after a couple of very peaceful hours, it came with a buzz, a hum, some clicks – and sudden light that felt harsh – and the magic of the night disappeared.

Of course, no one says we have to turn on lights at night, or watch TV or run the air conditioning. It’s a tradeoff we make. A choice. But it’s not a bad thing to be reminded now and then that it is a choice, and that we do give up some things in exchange for others. For convenience, comfort, entertainment or diversion, we are less in touch with nature and with our own imaginations, and our own thoughts.

And I think what I noticed most in those quiet candlelit hours was not the more obvious absence of TV or music or even the lights, but the background noise, the constant, low, thrumming presence of machines, like a current running through me, not just through the wires. In its absence, I could feel the peaceful quiet more than hear it.

Less than a week away from the summer solstice, we’ve had day after day of hot, sunny, dry weather, temperatures often in the mid to upper 90s, and it’s beginning to seem less like an early heat wave and more just what summer is going to be this year.

But early mornings are beautiful – fresh and cool, with scattered birdsong that’s less exuberant than earlier in the spring, but pleasant in a slower-paced way, and often there have been surprises lately, isolated visitors passing through. This morning a Yellow-billed Cuckoo called in woods along a creek, the first time this summer I’ve heard its dry cawp-cawp-cawp, so I think it had probably wandered by from woods not far away.

Yesterday morning a White-breasted Nuthatch gave a sharp, nasal ahnk! ahnk! from the trees around our yard – a rare visitor. And down the road in another part of the neighborhood, an Eastern Wood-pewee whistled its summery pee-a-wee, wheee-oooo.

Earlier in the week, just for one morning, a Northern Parula stopped by to sing its buzzy, rising and falling trill in the trees on the edge of the woods – another rare visitor so far this summer.

Meanwhile, one of the nicest parts of this time of year – when it can seem birds are so quiet and so scarce – is the relaxed, repeated rhythm of finding familiar birds in familiar places, a daily ritual, more ephemeral than it seems right now – a Scarlet Tanager that sings in the trees all around our house, a Summer Tanager that’s often singing at the same time from the top of the large red oak on the corner, Chipping Sparrows that trill from the branches of young red maples in our front yard, the breet of a Great-crested Flycatcher from the edge of the woods, a Black-and-white Warbler singing its wispy weesa-weesa-weesa in a scrappy patch of woods on a hilltop, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher calling spee and flashing like a slender elf of silver-gray in the leaves of pecans by the roadside; the twitter of Chimney Swifts sweeping overhead; a Gray Catbird that mews loudly from big shrubs around one yard; a family of Red-shouldered Hawks whose cries can be heard most mornings in deeper woods along a creek; Barn Swallows with long forked tails that swoop and dip and streak over a large grassy yard.

In the old field, the young Blue Grosbeak now sings boldly from the tops of trees every day, its song a confident, full, rich warble; an Indigo Bunting chants its sweet-sweet, chew-chew, sweet-chew from the tops of chinaberry and wild cherry trees, a smaller, neater, more compact song – like the diminutive bird itself – but even more brilliantly colored and bright; one White-eyed Vireo, a Pine Warbler and several Eastern Towhees sing also in the field. It seems a little strange, but that’s the only place where I usually hear a Pine Warbler singing right now.

Late yesterday afternoon and early evening thundershowers moved through, bringing a good soaking rain, welcome, if brief, relief in a long spell of very hot dry days that look likely to continue for some time to come. At twilight, even though the rain had cooled off the temperature a little, steam rose in clouds from the pavement on the roads, turning orange in the last glow of sunset. Rainwater dripped from the trees. Fireflies flashed low over the grass. A Summer Tanager sang from its favorite perch in a large old red oak tree down the street, and a Scarlet Tanager sang from woods along a creek in the other direction, to the east.