Birding Notes

Later in the afternoon, while working in my office, I heard a White-throated Sparrow’s sweet song just outside the window, and the chips, tseets and chatter of several little birds coming to the seeds in the tray on the deck.

Then a familiar chrup, repeated, sounded close – and when I looked out the window, saw a Hermit Thrush standing on top of several inches of frozen snow piled up on the deck rail. It stood there for four or five minutes. It flicked its wings, raised the cinnamon tail and said chrup over and over again, and turned around in one spot very gradually, making a complete circle a couple of times, as if just checking out the world all around. It looked watchful, as always, but not at all agitated. Its spindly feet splayed out on the snow. Its plumage a warm, muted brown. I have not seen it come to the feeder on the deck, but maybe it was attracted by all the other bird activity. A White-throated Sparrow flew up and perched briefly beside it, neither bird seemed to mind the other. Then the sparrow flew away, and a few seconds later, the Hermit Thrush flew into the woods.

Late last Friday morning – a deeply gray, cloudy, cold and windy day – against a background of bare-limbed trees, brown grass and shivering gray-green shrubs, the nasal, burry ahnk-ahnk calls of a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches came as a surprise. We don’t often hear or see them here in our neighborhood, though they seem to come by more often during the winter months. It didn’t take long to find them – little spots of blue-gray and white creeping over and around the forked trunks and limbs of pecan trees scattered around a neighbor’s large, grassy yard.

Small birds with a crisp silver-gray back, black cap, snow-white cheeks and face, and stubby tail – and a white breast that I could not see well from where I stood, they stayed in constant motion, moving quickly and close over the limbs and trunks, probing the bark and lichen with long thin bills, pausing now and then to crane their necks up and look around, and calling to each other frequently.

In the pearl-gray light and brisk wind, they looked like winter birds – all gray and white and black – though in truth they’re year-round residents here. But since they’re not common in our own neighborhood, it always seems special to me to see them.

They were a good reminder of how much I’ve missed over the past few weeks, as the holiday season and other things have left little time for birding and less for writing. But there have been a few other highlights during this time, at least brief glimpses of what’s going on in the world outside houses, restaurants and shopping malls – a Brown Creeper in the edge of our woods on the last day of 2010; a Fox Sparrow and a Sharp-Shinned Hawk on the edge of the old field on December 30; and a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers around our house on Christmas day.

2010 came to an end with a brief warm spell and a softly-clouded, sometimes sunny, quiet day, the sky a gentle blue with high white clouds and several turkey vultures drifting low over the treetops.

We took advantage of the warm weather (in the low 60s) to eat lunch outside on the deck. A Carolina Wren, Northern Flicker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe and Eastern Towhee were around in the yard and the woods. One Black Vulture sailed over very high. The balmy air and soft blue sky felt relaxing, perfect for lying back and watching the clouds drift by, so when I began to hear some high, vaguely sibilant calls, at first I didn’t fully pay attention and sort of thought some Golden-crowned Kinglets had come around, as they often do. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t hearing kinglets, and what it might be – and to my great surprise, there it was – an exquisite little Brown Creeper on the trunk of one of the oaks on the edge of the woods. A tiny bird with a dark back of mottled brown, black and white, an intricate pattern of sharp, clean colors that blended in with the bark of the trees, a white breast, and a long, thin, curved bill that it used to probe the bark.

Brown Creepers are not considered uncommon, but they are so quiet, small and inconspicuous they are not often seen, and in our neighborhood they seem to be less common than a few years ago, as more wooded land has been converted to homes and other suburban development.

It crept up and around one trunk, moving insect-like, close to the bark, upward in a spiral, then flew abruptly to another trunk, and another, staying in view for maybe four or five minutes, moving quickly – and best of all, calling again and again. The call is a high, thin tseeeee, an almost whispered sizzle, one long syllable at a time, but frequently repeated. It’s a distinctive and enticing call, fairylike and delightful – but very easily overlooked.

That was the best part of it for me – to recognize the call, and have a chance to hear it several times. It still makes me smile to think of it. A nice gift to end the year.

On a cool, softly-overcast day, the sun often breaking through high, many-layered clouds, a sparrow flew out of some weedy thickets in a field across the road in front of me as I walked – and perched near the top of a small bare tree along the roadside.

I expected to see a White-throated Sparrow or maybe a Song Sparrow – but instead discovered a large, plump bird with a proud head and striking red-brown coloring, with contrasting dove-gray patterns on the head and face, red-brown wings, and white breast heavily spotted and streaked with red-brown. A Fox Sparrow.

I hadn’t seen a Fox Sparrow in several years, but its vivid coloring and shape and behavior are familiar. It was like seeing an old friend because I used to see them often in the winter, when we lived in a different place in Oconee County. This is the first time I’ve seen a Fox Sparrow here in this neighborhood. It stayed perched quietly in the little tree for maybe two or three minutes, giving me a good long look before it flew again, back across the road and out of sight in the shrubs of the field.

Just as I turned around and started to walk away, a compact, sleek gray hawk with a long tail flew suddenly out of the trees behind me like a phantom and swooped low across the road, skimming the top of the weeds and shrubs, then flying up and a little higher and away toward the trees on the other side of the highway, in a crisp and distinctive flap-flap-flap – glide pattern of flight – a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Christmas day began with a soft orange light above the southeastern horizon that grew more and more intensely orange. A Carolina Wren sang, then a brilliant, shimmering red sun slipped up between gleaming gray clouds and behind a tangle of pines and bare branches. But only for a minute or two. It was quickly gone, hidden by a thick layer of clouds, but leaving a sheen of silver over the sky for a few morning hours.

Around 10 am, we heard the calls of two Pileated Woodpeckers in the trees on the edge of the woods behind our house, and watched them in the dead pines and other trees for several minutes, a male and a female. Several times they flew very close to the house as they moved around from tree to tree. Their black and white plumage and vivid red crests stood out against the drab gray and brown winter landscape, but after those first calls, they were quiet, except for the occasional thunk of their bills hitting a trunk, the scratch of claws on the bark, and the soft click of pine bark falling.

At the same time, several other woodpeckers and smaller birds were active around the back yard – a Northern Flicker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Carolina Wren, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Chipping Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, American Goldfinch, and a pair of Northern Cardinals.

By early afternoon, a cold, steady rain had begun to fall. It continued the rest of the day and into the night – turning into a magical, picture-perfect snowfall before midnight, and by the next morning, our world was white, covered in three or four inches of snow, with a light, fluffy snow still falling. It was a pretty, dreamy snow, falling thickly, but fun to walk in, and before it ended the wind picked up and kept the trees blown free, so no harm done, and we enjoyed a rare snow day.

The cold, pale mornings of late November and early December here begin with the song of a Carolina Wren, a familiar, very common small brown bird with an upturned tail, a dusky-orange breast and a pale stripe over its eye, often singing from a perch among the dry, rustling brown leaves that still cling to the oaks outside our bedroom windows. In contrast to the muted colors of the trees and shrubs all around, the bright, musical song of the wren is as colorful and warm as a Christmas carol – not the only bird singing at this time of year, but one of the few, and the one most in tune with the holiday season.

A male Carolina Wren welcomes even the coldest, dreariest late-fall morning with a bold teakettle, teakettle, teakettle – or heard a different way maybe, merrily, merrily, merrily – answered by a female’s long, ringing, trilled cheeer.

The singing continues off and on all day, in a variety of different patterns of two or three phrases, as well as trills, burbles, buzzes, chitters, bleeps and other calls. I don’t know how often one particular Carolina Wren might sing at this time of year, but there are many scattered throughout the neighborhood, so their songs and calls are heard from shrubs, trees, thickets, fields and woods – and now and then from inside a garage that’s been left open. Often two or three males seem to be singing back and forth to each other, repeating the same songs. At other times, I’ve stood and listened to four or five different wrens singing in different directions, all singing a different kind of song. A Carolina Wren may have a repertoire of more than 50 different songs, though around 30 is said to be the average. And while each song is distinct, the full-throated, confident tone is always recognizable.

One of their most frequent vocalizations at this time of year is something that sounds to me like a burble. It’s a fast, repeated, sort of bouncing purp-purp-purp-purp that they seem to utter most often when moving around, a traveling chatter.

Though so common and familiar they’re often overlooked, Carolina Wrens are remarkable singers and ingenious, curious, feisty, entertaining little birds – and this time of year is a good time to appreciate the beauty and spirit they bring to everyday life in a suburban yard. Things would be a lot less interesting around here without them.

Around our house, a Carolina Wren is a frequent visitor to both feeders and birdbaths. They cling to a feeder for several minutes at a time, eating seeds, nuts or fruit. There’s almost always one or two under the bushes out front, and usually another one or two around the back deck or in the edge of the woods. This morning I looked out the kitchen window and a Carolina Wren was perched on the deck rail, bobbing up and down as it sang a few bars, then it searched along the rail and down on the deck among the piles of fallen leaves for hidden spiders or larvae or something, burbling as it went.

One morning in late November, on a cold but sunny day, I watched as a Carolina Wren took a bath in the birdbath out front. The water was shallow, with a thick layer of soggy dark-brown fallen leaves, but seemed to suit the wren’s purposes, as it dipped in, fluttering its wings and submerged completely. Then it popped out to perch on the rim and look around sharply for a few seconds before hopping back into the water to wash itself again, splashing as it dipped its head under and turned itself around. Each time it came up to perch on the rim, it sat in a ray of sunlight, which made its breast glow rosy brown. It did this four or five times, and then, after the last one, flew to one of the feeders and immediately began to eat. Some days, life is good.

Early Saturday morning, as sunlight was just beginning to filter through the orange and brown leaves of the oaks in the front yard, a shy grayish-brown bird with a spotted breast and a wide-eyed, watchful look came out of the dark-green leaves of a bush onto the mulch-covered ground and stood there, looking around, only a few feet away from me. A Hermit Thrush. It was the first one I’ve heard or seen this season here around our yard, though they’ve been back in the area for a while now. I probably just haven’t been observant enough to see them. It stood with head tilted and bill slightly raised. A white ring around the eye gave it the watchful look.

After only a few seconds, it dived back into the cleyera bush, and from there flew into the low branches of an oak nearby, and I could hear it give several repeated chup calls. Though I couldn’t spot it among the leaves, I could imagine it perched there, quickly raising its cinnamon-colored tail and slowly lowering it again, and again.

Then I also heard the chup calls of at least one, and I think two more Hermit Thrushes at different spots around the yard or nearby. Hearing these calls was almost as good as seeing the thrush, they are so rich and expressive. The call is a soft, mellow chup that sounds a little like a blackbird, but more pleasant. It’s a call I’m still trying to learn well enough to recognize better – for some reason it often eludes me, and often I don’t notice the call until after I’ve seen the bird, though I don’t know why.

It was a beautiful fall day, sunny, bright and warm by noon, with foliage here at its most colorful, with the orange and browns of oaks, yellow and wine of sweet gums, red of a few lush maples still full of leaves, and many leaves falling, showering down in the slightest breeze. It hasn’t been a particularly brilliant fall season. A number of trees have abruptly turned brown and dropped their leaves without their usual autumn phase. But right now – with deep blue, cloudless skies, cool nights and mornings and warm afternoons – the season is at its finest.

Meanwhile, a White-throated Sparrow, an Eastern Bluebird and an Eastern Phoebe sang – and I was surprised to hear the softly-trilled song of a Pine Warbler from the woods. Lately I haven’t been hearing them sing later in the day, and suspect I’m missing a lot by not getting up and out earlier. A Red-shouldered Hawk cried from somewhere beyond the treeline in the east. Red-bellied Woodpeckers rattled and chuck-chuck-chucked.

Dark-eyed Juncos and Mourning Doves foraged for seeds under the feeders, while Tufted Titmice, Carolina Chickadees, and one Downy Woodpecker visited the feeders. A Brown Thrasher ventured out briefly from below the bushes, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet chattered its dry, staccato jidit-jidit from the same shrubs, and from overhead came the high ti-ti-ti calls of Golden-crowned Kinglets. This seems to be a good year for them here – I hear them almost every day, in several different spots in the neighborhood, as well as around our own yard. Several Cedar Waxwings also were around, calling in very high, thin tseees.

A pair of Cardinals perched in low branches, and the female visited one of the feeders. Chipping Sparrows foraged in the grass, and Yellow-rumped Warblers flashed around, chasing each other from tree to tree, especially in the bare limbs of the river birches, and in the wax myrtles.

Bird activity around our yard and – as well as I can tell – throughout the neighborhood has seemed rather subdued and unusually quiet so far this year. Winter residents have filtered quietly in. But the past few days, birds seem to be more numerous and more active.

Later in the day, about the middle of the afternoon, a dozen or more Cedar Waxwings returned to the trees in the front yard. Four or five Eastern Bluebirds took turns bathing in the bird bath and perching in nearby branches to fluff up and preen and dry. Several Yellow-rumped Warblers foraged in the mulch near the feeders, with one female Pine Warbler; a Brown Thrasher and a pair of Eastern Towhees searched the ground under the shrubs and flew from bush to bush; and a young Yellow-bellied Sapsucker worked on the trunk of one of the pecan trees. The usual Chickadees, Titmice, and one female Cardinal, one Mockingbird, a Carolina Wren, and several Mourning Doves also were around. I heard the squeaky calls of Brown-headed Nuthatches from the pines, but they did not come to the feeders.

On a late afternoon walk through the neighborhood, I passed a flock of creaking, croaking, chuckling Blackbirds – mostly Common Grackles – long-tailed, large-billed, glossy-black and iridescent – with at least a few plainer Rusty Blackbirds among them. This flock of around 100 Blackbirds – a very rough estimate, because they’re always spread out among several trees and sometimes on the ground – has been visiting the neighborhood regularly for the past two or three weeks. I’ve seen them just about every day, and usually find a few Rusty Blackbirds among the Grackles.

The day ended with a crackling flock of Blackbirds flying over in the cool, blue-gray early twilight. Two bats circled low over the back yard, feasting on an abundance of flying insects. A very bright star shined among the pines in the southeast, and a half moon hung high in the southern sky.

After a long stretch of warm, sunny, very dry days, it felt like a luxury to wake up this morning to the sound of soft rain falling through the leaves of the oaks. It wasn’t much rain, but was welcome, and was followed by a slightly cooler and breezy day of cloud-screened sunlight.

When I stepped out onto the front porch mid-morning, the sky was still cloudy, the light gray. A Brown-headed Nuthatch flew from one of the feeders up into the trees, a Carolina Wren sang from the edge of the woods, Golden-crowned Kinglets whispered their high, crisp ti-ti-ti and Chickadees and Titmice chattered nearby. But the surprise of the morning was a very small, solitary bird on the trunk of a water oak beside one of the feeders – a Brown Creeper.

A tiny bird that clings close to the bark of a tree in an almost insect-like way, it crept around the trunk, moving upward in a spiral pattern, in and out of view, then flew back down to the lowest part of the trunk of the same tree and began creeping up it again, probing the bark with a thin down-curved bill, searching for small insects and other prey. Exquisitely patterned in shades of dark brown and white on the back, with a cream-white throat and breast, a Brown Creeper moves quietly and usually alone, at least not with other Creepers – though it often travels with a feeding flock of other small birds.

This one didn’t stay long enough for me to watch it more than a minute or two, but it was a pretty nice way to start the day. I seldom see one. Brown Creepers are inconspicuous at all times – small and quiet and blending in well with the trunks of the trees where they forage. Though their populations are not declining overall, there is concern for their future, especially in some areas, because of loss and degradation of the habitat they prefer – old-growth forests with mature live trees for foraging and dead or dying trees for nest sites. In our own neighborhood – where we see them only in the fall and winter – I’ve found them less often over the past few years, as suburban development has replaced more of the surrounding woodlands.

So it feels special whenever I see one, a rare glimpse into a part of the usually hidden or unnoticed life of these woods all around us.

On a bare branch near the top of a pecan tree this morning – a cool, gray, wet morning with clouds just beginning to break up and blue sky showing through – two Northern Flickers performed an interesting duel that appeared as much like a ritual dance as a confrontation. From perches close together on the branch, the two Flickers repeatedly lunged at each other and stabbed with their very long, sharp bills, making low wicka-wicka-wicka sounds as they fenced.

Meanwhile, a third Northern Flicker perched higher, among the withering leaves of the pecan, not taking part in the action, but staying near by.

All three were Yellow-shafted Northern Flickers – fairly large woodpeckers whose habits and appearance are quite different from other woodpeckers – with rich tawny-brown faces and throats, bold-spotted breasts, gray cap and a red crescent on the nape of the neck. The two dueling Flickers were males, with black moustache stripes. I couldn’t see the third Flicker well, but suspect it was a female. Both of the dueling Flickers showed deep-yellow feathers on the underside of their wings.

I first noticed them when I heard a Flicker’s loud kleer call, then saw three fly across the road ahead of me and into the upper branches of a pecan tree near the side of the road. There, the two males perched several inches apart on the same branch, more or less facing each other, and repeatedly came closer together and made the wicka-wicka-wicka sounds and lunged toward each other over and over, making flashy, circular and up and down movements with their bills. They never actually seemed to touch each other, though at times they came close.

They made these forays at each other several times, and between them retreated to the same positions and sat still. The lower one looked larger, plumper, more arrogant. It sat erect with its bill slightly raised. The one further up on the branch perched sort of stretched out sideways, and only turned to face its opponent when they engaged each other again. It looked smaller and less confident, but that may have been only my angle of view. During one bout, this smaller Flicker seemed to be forcing the larger one slightly backwards on the branch and to be winning the confrontation. Then it fell back, and they both resumed their original positions.

Each wicka-wicka-wicka encounter lasted several seconds, followed by a longer break of several seconds more, but probably less than a minute. When I left after about 10 or 15 minutes, they were still there, still dueling, with the female screened among the leaves above them.

Although we have Northern Flickers here year-round, they become more conspicuous in the fall and winter months, very often feeding in grassy yards with flocks of smaller birds.

The species account for Northern Flicker in Birds of North America Online says these mock “fencing duels” or dances play a role in territory establishment and pair formation and are most common in breeding season, but are also seen at other times of the year. The account also mentions that these dances show a great deal of variation in their movements, intensity and other characteristics, and that much remains to be learned about the dances and their meaning and purpose. Usually the duels end when one bird flies away, but the encounters can go on for hours.*

*Karen L. Wiebe and William S. Moore. 2008. Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.) Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Yesterday and today, the oaks and pines around our house have seemed at times to shimmer with the high, light calls of an unusual number of Golden-crowned Kinglets. They come and go all day. This afternoon I went outside one time when I heard them moving through. The first one I saw showed a yellow-gold crown, the second, a bright orange crown. Both were low among the branches, moving quickly around, gleaning tiny insects and calling their crisp, almost whispered ti-ti-ti. With bold black and white stripes surrounding the colorful crowns, white wing bars and greenish backs, they brought flashes of color and animation to the trees – which have seemed remarkably quiet for the past couple of weeks or so. For some reason, I have seen fewer migrant species here this fall than in any year I can remember, though I’m not completely sure if there were fewer birds – or if it’s because I’ve been outside less often or been too busy and preoccupied and not fully observant when I do get out.

Meanwhile, a Northern Flicker called kleer! from an area just inside the woods with a good many dead standing pines. A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker mewed from further away in the woods – I haven’t yet seen the first one here, but its calls are familiar, and it’s nice to know they are back. Several times I’ve thought I heard the nasal call of a Red-breasted Nuthatch, but I haven’t yet seen it and am not certain.

Other sounds of the warm, sunny fall day came from our year-round resident birds – the loud kee-yer of a soaring Red-shouldered Hawk, the softly-trilled song of a Pine Warbler, the tsup of an Eastern Phoebe, the chatter and fussing of Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees, the bouncing burble of a Carolina Wren, an Eastern Bluebird’s blurry churry-churry, the squeaking calls of Brown-headed Nuthatches, the chuck-chuck and rattle of a Red-bellied Woodpecker and pink! of a Downy, the harsh squawk of a Northern Mockingbird – and a silent Brown Thrasher stood on the rim of the bird bath.

Yesterday morning as I walked up the slope of our driveway shortly after sunrise, twelve Chimney Swifts came flying out of the north in a pale blue sky flecked with small orange-pink clouds. They flew spread out widely, moving directly from north to south, as if on a mission, flew up and over me, and disappeared. I don’t know for sure that they were leaving – but they looked as if they were, the way they flew in one direction, with purpose, not circling around, like a perfect image of the last birds of summer, finally on their way.

Last Friday, October 8, we still had one female Ruby-throated Hummingbird coming to our feeder. I haven’t seen one since then, though our weekend was busy so I’m not sure they all have left.