Birding Notes

A little before 10:30, I started out for a walk, passing a Northern Flicker that flew up from the grass, flashing its white rump patch. Although some Flickers are year-round residents here, at this time of year their numbers increase, as migrants arrive for the winter from further north.

I also passed several Brown Thrashers all along the way. For some reason, they seemed to be everywhere – and many were calling in a loud, sharp djak! Several perched in treetops, others called from shrubs, and in the old field, at least five or six different Brown Thrashers called from trees and weedy bushes. It may be that, as with the Flickers, more Brown Thrashers arrive here for the winter months, and – here I am just imagining – maybe some of them arrived recently – maybe even just last night as the cold front moved in – and their calls are part of settling in and establishing winter territories and relationships.

Phoebes and Bluebirds also were active, along with Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers and one Pileated Woodpecker, Blue Jays, Crows and House Finch.

As I came around a group of tall trees at one corner, I saw a big brown shape on the corner of a roof – a Red-shouldered Hawk. It was just sitting there, out in full view, with only the cloudy sky for a background, with its back to me, but turning its head in profile. For several minutes I watched as it sat there, moving very little except to look around. No crows or jays were harassing it at the moment. Then it leaned out, spread wings and tail and flew – not far, at first. It paused in the top of a pine, facing me, where I got a brief but clear view of its heavily brown-streaked breast, and tail with narrow bands in shades of brown – a juvenile. From there, it flew to a treetop further away, where a horde of smaller birds discovered it and flew around it like furies, diving at it and perching in nearby branches. Blue Jays, a Mockingbird, even a Red-bellied Woodpecker took a dive at it once. But the Hawk ducked and stood its ground for several minutes before finally giving up and flying again, low, and out of my sight.

As I got back home and walked down the driveway, two Chipping Sparrows flew out of the wax myrtles and up into a tree, and one lone Chimney Swift flew over. By this time, the mist had become a light rain. I was just about to go inside when a woodpecker swooped down from over the roof, into one of the pecan trees, and when I looked more closely – sure enough – it was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. The first of the season I’ve seen here. It was quiet, not mewing, and went quickly from spot to spot, up and down the trunk of the pecan, finally finding a spot it liked and tapping there for a few minutes. Even in the misty gray light, its colors looked rich – red crown and red throat, and a mellow, dark-flecked, yellow-brown belly. It stayed in the trees around the front yard until a couple of noisy racing squirrels seemed to disturb it into flying further away.

After several days out of town, I returned home this weekend to more rainy weather. Sunday night and Monday a hard rain fell for hours and hours. Some streets in town were flooded, and the creeks that run through the woods below our house rushed with high water. But, I have to say, the rain made beautiful music to sleep by, and a drowsy background for the song of a Phoebe as I woke up Monday morning.

Yesterday brought a break of sunshine and blue sky, then the rain returned, and it rained all night again, this time soft but steady. When I stepped outside this morning, everything looked drenched and dripping, with puddles and streams all over, and a very soft rain that continued for most of the day. All the usual suspects were around – Chickadee, Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Downy and Red-bellied Woodpecker, Phoebe, Mourning Dove, Blue Jay, House Finch and a pair of Brown-headed Nuthatches that come often every day to the feeder. Mockingbirds continue to sing off and on throughout the day, not usually for long at a time. A Northern Flicker called kleeer! from the woods across the road, and a bright red Cardinal perched high among pecan leaves now beginning to turn crusty yellow-green. Some leaves have begun to fall from pecans and oaks and sweet gums, washed down by the rain and showering down with acorns when a gust of wind blows through.

Early in the afternoon, as a misty rain continued, a Carolina Wren bathed in very shallow puddles of water on the deck and deck rails. It lay down in the water and fluttered and turned, then stood up tall to shake off, looked around, bobbed up and down, then it flitted to another shallow puddle and bathed again, repeating the process three or four times before shaking off for the final time. Then it spent some time checking out the umbrella, table and chairs, and all along the underside of the deck rail, looking for spiders and insects.

Although I went for a pleasant walk in the rain and checked outside several times, most of today seemed quiet, with not a lot of activity and nothing new to report until late in the afternoon. The rain had drizzled to a near-stop, but the sky was still dark and gray. I walked out on the back deck to take a break from work, but nothing much seemed to be happening. The trees appeared to be empty. The big dogwood at the edge of the woods is heavy with lots of bright red berries, but no birds were around them. Then a Cooper’s Hawk flew over, a dark gray shape against the lighter, murky clouds, long narrow tail and broad wings flapping with somewhat heavy beats, and gliding, sailing over, a silent but substantial shadow in the mist.

After a rainy late September, the first of October arrived on a bright sunny day, with deep blue sky and small white drifting clouds, still little fall color in the foliage, and not a great deal of bird activity. The days have been peaceful and rather quiet, with a feeling of pause in the air – still a few last lingering birds of the summer – a Hummingbird in some flowers, two Blue-gray Gnatcatchers in the trees, six Chimney Swifts flying over – watching for migrants moving through and seeing very few.

By today clouds began to return, and more heavy rain is expected tonight. Late this morning Chickadees, Titmice, Red-bellied Woodpecker, and Carolina Wrens were active in the front yard, while a half dozen squirrels hustled around in the branches of the pecan trees, gathering up the nuts before they could fall, and sometimes sat and rasped in awful, grating voices. A very pretty male Chestnut-sided Warbler hunted for insects in the pecan trees, and a Phoebe with a faint yellow flush over its breast perched on the mailbox and bobbed its tail and flew from there to low branches around the yard. Two Mockingbirds sang brief pieces of song back and forth, sounding casual and easy, like whistling a tune now and then.

A pair of Brown-headed Nuthatches arrived, squeaking, and made several trips to the hanging bird feeder. Feisty little birds with brown caps and gray bodies, and a pale white spot on the nape of the neck, they are not intimidated by much larger Titmice or even by a relatively huge Mockingbird that now and then tries to claim the feeder. The determined little Nuthatches lunge at the bigger birds aggressively and usually win the confrontation, chasing the big guys away, at least temporarily.

A Red-shouldered Hawk cried from far in the distance. A lone Brown Thrasher moved nervously from spot to spot under low-growing, bushy wax myrtles. A single Mourning Dove returned, and a chipmunk smacked loudly. A sulphur butterfly drifted by. One Mockingbird perched in a little pecan tree in the center of our cul de sac and sang, while two other Mockingbirds chased each other, squawking loudly, in and out of the river birches. A Pileated Woodpecker gave its traveling call down in the woods.

By early evening the sky had become thickly clouded. There’s a full moon tonight, but we won’t be able to see it – so I’m glad that last night we went out, when the near-full moon shined high and bright and silvery in the east. It hung in a soft black sky, as if still warm from summer, with moon-white clouds, a sprinkling of stars, and one brilliant, burning star high in the southeast, not far from the moon. A few katydids sang, and lots of crickets chirped.

After a rainy, stormy month, September came to an end today with brisk, sunny, breezy weather, an intense blue sky, not a cloud in sight, and brilliant light. An Eastern Wood-Pewee sang off and on all morning from nearby in the woods, giving its full, sweet, whistled song. The trees are still full with green leaves, only beginning to fade and wither, and few spots of fall color yet –bright red berries on the dogwoods, some shadows of rust and red and amber in vines and shrubs.

Crickets and grasshoppers sing shrill songs. Yellowjackets, restless and pesky, seem to be everywhere. Cicadas have fallen quiet. Early in the night, a few katydids still rattle, but as the temperature falls, they also fall quiet.

Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice, a Mockingbird, Eastern Phoebe, Carolina Wrens and Brown-headed Nuthatches are the most active birds around the yard – not to mention Cardinals, Blue Jays, Crows and Mourning Doves – and we’ve also been hearing a Pileated Woodpecker and a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers often around the edges of the woods. A Pine Warbler sings. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers call their wheezy spee-spee. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds continue to visit the feeder and late-blooming flowers. Now and then there’s a flicka-flicka-flicka or loud kleer! of a Northern Flicker.

The highlight of this last day of September, though, was hearing the nasal onk-onk calls of a White-breasted Nuthatch from the woods across the street. I also heard these calls a couple of days ago, but haven’t yet seen one. They are not residents here in our neighborhood during the summer, so I don’t know if this one might be just roaming, passing through, or – maybe – staying around for the winter.

The past few days, each morning has begun with the persistent calls and song of an Eastern Phoebe in the branches of the oaks outside our bedroom windows, and one or two Phoebes have been active around the house all day – even more active than usual.

With its plain gray back and wings, darker gray, slightly crested head and gray-white breast, this small, shadow-like flycatcher isn’t flashy in appearance – but its animated behavior, characteristic habit of wagging its tail up and down when perched, and the way it hunts, nests and makes itself right at home around yards and houses makes it a familiar bird to many people. For me it’s a favorite.

An Eastern Phoebe sings its name with a scratchy whistle, gives a distinctive sharp tsup call, and occasionally erupts in a jumble of tumbling notes that sound agitated or excited. The species account in Birds of North America* describes a “chatter call” as a “rapid, harsh, nasal tree-tree-tree-tree, with occasionally as many as 30 elements” and that sounds like what I’ve often heard. The account goes on to say that this call is given only by males, and is almost always given around a nest or potential nest site. I’ve been hearing this call often the past few days and don’t always see the birds when I hear it. Of course, they’re not nesting right now, but on at least one occasion today, a Phoebe was perched on the site of last year’s nest when it called like this.

I had been watching as it hunted from different perches around the front yard, calling, singing, fluttering around under the eaves to check for spiders and insects, and perching on the rim of the birdbath briefly. From a low branch on a pecan tree, it flew to the crook in the gutter over the garage where a pair of Phoebes nested last spring and raised three healthy babies. It paused there for several seconds and gave this rapid call of tumbling notes. I thought it might be one of the young ones that were born there, but maybe it was the male of the pair.

I’m not 100 percent sure this call – which I usually describe as “fussing” – is the same as the “chatter call,” but the description given sounds like the same one.

*Harmon P. Weeks, Jr. “Eastern Phoebe (Sayomis phoebe), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.) Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

This morning our front door stood open for several minutes while a new sofa was being delivered. It wasn’t until the delivery-men had left and I closed the door that I heard a funny buzzing way up near the high ceiling of the entry-way – and looked up to see a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird fluttering frantically.

I immediately opened the door wide again, but the Hummingbird showed no interest in flying down. It beat its wings and went all around the ceiling and corners, seeming convinced that the only way out would be up. When I went upstairs and stood on the landing, it flew over my head and buzzed against the ceiling there, and two or three times stopped, resting on the molding, almost close enough for me to reach out and touch.

I wasn’t at all sure what to do and worried that it would injure itself by battering against the ceiling. I don’t have a butterfly net and couldn’t think of anything else like it that might work. Finally – after closing the doors to all other rooms upstairs – I got a very loose, fluffy blue duster on a long pole, and fastened a large red ribbon around it. I also opened a bright red umbrella downstairs near the open door and spread out a big sheet of red paper over the doormat.

Then I stood at the railing on the second-floor landing and extended the duster toward the Hummingbird, very carefully, not touching it, hoping maybe just to nudge it in the right direction. At first, it continued to move around against the ceiling, avoiding the duster. Then to my amazement, it settled on the pole, just underneath the duster and clung there.

Very slowly, I lowered the pole, not really thinking it was possible that the Hummingbird would continue to hold on – but it did. It allowed itself to be lowered on the pole, as if calmly taking an elevator, until it reached the open doorway – and there, it flew immediately out the door and settled on one of the coral-pink blossoms outside that had attracted it to begin with. When I walked downstairs to close the door, it was still perched there on the flower. It looked up at me quickly, then turned and flew in a straight line away.

I still can hardly believe that it allowed itself to be lowered on the pole in this way and have no idea why it worked.

Later in the day, when I was sitting on the porch beside the New Guinea impatiens plants with the pink blossoms, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird came zooming low over my head to check out the flowers again – probably the same one, though I don’t know that for sure.

This morning a small feeding flock brought several migrants through the yard, including Black-and-white and Chestnut-sided Warblers, Northern Parula, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Summer Tanager and Eastern Wood-Pewee. A Phoebe, a pair of Brown-headed Nuthatches, and a singing Pine Warbler came with them, as well as Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Chickadees, Titmice and Carolina Wrens.

The day began cloudy, gray, warm, humid and soggy everywhere, with lots of leaves and debris down, but the sun gradually broke through the clouds and blue sky began to show. An Eastern Bluebird sang a blurry ter-wee, ter-wee. Crickets and grasshoppers cheeped. The leaves of the bushes beside where I stood on the front porch swarmed with hunting yellowjackets.

The first Chestnut-sided Warbler was a male with burgundy streaks on its sides and a clean gray breast, foraging among the leaves of a water oak. A few minutes later, a colorful first-year female came very close, out in full view on low oak branches, its back, head and wing-bars soaked in yellow, and white rings circling its eyes.

The Black-and-white Warbler crept along large oak branches. With bright white and black stripes on its head and more subdued – not so crisp and bold – black and white stripes and streaks over the rest of its body, I think it was a first-year female.

The Northern Parula announced its presence with repeated loud, sharp chipping calls, and as it slipped quickly from place to place I could only glimpse the yellow throat and upper breast and blurred coral breast-band – but a couple of minutes later, it sang once or twice, with a soft rising and falling zzzzzziiii-up.

It was a modest group – nothing spectacular. But the most diverse flock to come through our yard so far this fall, and lots of fun to watch.

This morning we woke up to soggy gray-green skies again. Our long siege of rainy days continues, with little break. Although the moisture is welcome, gray day after gray day is getting depressing, and all sorts of critters are trying to make their way inside – scorpions, spiders, centipedes, ants, moths.

This morning I stood with the front door open for several minutes, just looking out at the front yard, and a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird almost flew inside – though I’m sure she didn’t mean to, and relieved that she didn’t. She had just come to check out the coral-pink New Guinea impatiens blooming in pots on the porch, and there I was, and she hovered in front of me, up, down, sideways – then dashed away in a bee-line.

A few minutes later, out back in a very soft, light sprinkle, two Phoebes hunted from the tops of dead pines. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers called and flitted in and out of the leaves of the oaks, and three Chimney Swifts passed overhead. Two Red-eyed Vireos exchanged several emphatic REE-ang calls, much louder and more agitated-sounding than their usual whining nyanh, though the quality is similar. Two female or juvenile Ruby-throated Hummingbirds zoomed back and forth around the feeder – they stay busy all day long, even in the hardest rain, it seems. I watched one go to the geranium plants, so lush with red blossoms several days ago, but now they are rather washed out and bedraggled.

Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Blue Jays, Chickadees, Titmice and – finally! – a Chestnut-sided Warbler, the first migrating warbler I’ve been able to see this season. I didn’t get a very good look, but could see two bright wing bars, a grayish-green back, and white belly.

The day – and the summer – ended with thunderstorms and torrential rain that caused widespread flooding. Here, we were lucky enough to have only a little dampness in the basement and no further problems.