Birding Notes

It’s been a beautiful spring weekend, with blue skies, off and on some clouds, and lots of birdsong, especially early in the mornings. I still have not seen or heard many returning migrants, but both yesterday and this morning a Blue-headed Vireo sang from the edge of the woods. It stayed frustratingly just a little too far away to see among the new-green leaves of water oaks and sweet gums.

Blue-gray Gnatcatchers called speee all around the yard, and a Northern Parula continued to sing its buzzy song nearby in the woods. At least three or four Chipping Sparrows trilled from perches in shrubs and trees, and their songs are among my favorites right now. Although a Chipping Sparrow’s song is usually described as a monotone trill, it seems to me that no two of them sing quite alike at this time of year. Some are looser, some faster, some lighter in quality, more airy, some more forceful, some even almost musical.

Phoebe, Cardinal, Carolina Wren, Titmouse, Chickadee, Eastern Towhee, Chipping Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Brown Thrasher, Robin and Ruby-crowned Kinglet have been among the other morning singers, with the calls of Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Brown-headed Nuthatch, and the cries of a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks. The Mockingbirds in our yard sing now and then, but not much yet.

And we still have a good many winter residents. One female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker continued to tap into the pecan trees around the front yard all day yesterday and today. Yellow-rumped Warblers creep through the branches of the trees, gleaning insects from the catkins and small new leaves, calling check! and now and then singing a few loose, pretty notes. Dark-eyed Juncos feed quietly around the bushes, only making soft jingles when they are startled into flying up into a tree.

About a dozen Cedar Waxwings still come back to visit the Savannah hollies for red berries every day. They must not eat many of them at a time. They move in silently, one at a time, materializing like shadows above me, lurking in the branches for a while, then whispering tzeeeeee calls before moving into the hollies.

This morning when I stepped onto the back deck – into a sunny, colorful, very windy day – I heard a familiar low chirping, looked around – and there were six little brown-streaked Pine Siskins in the bare branches of the white oak that hang over the deck, in the same area where a feeder hung until about two weeks ago. They chirped in a quiet but insistent way, and one by one came a little closer and closer toward me, as if hoping that I was bringing food again.

I was surprised to see them. I thought they had all gone – though one morning last week I did hear the zhrreeee calls of several in the pines again, so apparently a few are still around. These six chirped and studied me for three or four minutes, then abruptly flew away, disappearing into the wind and the trees.

After a lot of rain the past few days, it felt good to see blue sky and sunshine again. The woods are turning green with new young leaves and white sprays of dogwoods. A Northern Parula continues to sing in the trees around the house, and there are the wheezy spees! of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and the songs of Phoebe, Chipping Sparrow, Cardinal, Carolina Wren, Chickadee, Titmouse, Towhee, White-throated Sparrow and Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

Two Louisiana Waterthrushes now sing in different directions along the creek, in their usual territories, though it’s been hard to hear them the past few days through the rain, wind, and the rushing of very high water in the creek.

A Red-tailed Hawk circled and soared in the strong wind. A female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, with a pure white throat and crimson crown, tapped on the trunks of the pecans. A Dark-eyed Junco flew up from the grass into a tree, with a high, thin jingle of notes. And a Brown-headed Cowbird perched in the very top of a pecan tree and sang.

In the crook of a gutter pipe just below the roof and beside the chimney, there’s a nest that looks as if it’s made of mud and something green. It’s neatly shaped and rather large, and we think it may be the nest of a pair of Phoebes. A Phoebe often wakes us in the morning lately, singing from just outside our windows, and there’s a pair that hunts all around the yard, close to the house.

This morning a Northern Parula sang from the branches of a large sweet gum tree on the edge of our back yard. A small, round, colorful bird with a blue-gray head, greenish back, and a blurry coral band across a yellow breast and throat, the Parula sings a crisp, buzzy song that rises to a crescendo and quickly drops down.

In this same tree yesterday morning – where new-green leaves are beginning to open – an even smaller, slim and trim Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, with a long, often upturned tail, called its wheezy spee! spee! hello.

Today the weather is gray and cool, with more rain in the forecast. From down near the creek I can hear the brightly slurred song of a Louisiana Waterthrush. I first heard it sing last Friday, March 27, early in the evening during a break in the rain.

With a pale green haze of new leaves spreading through the woods, the lacy white sprays of lots of dogwoods in bloom, and the arrival of these first returning migrants, it’s beginning to really feel like Spring.

The Pine Siskins have gone. The little brown-streaked birds with ravenous appetites that first appeared in our yard in mid January, swarming the finch feeder and keeping it busy every day since then, have finally left for their homes in the far north and west.

Their absence was the first thing I noticed when I stepped outside this morning, into a cool, gray, drizzly day. The chirping and zhrrreeeeee calls that had become a familiar part of the sounds around the house could not be heard. The pine tops where they had gathered stood empty and quiet.

We had taken down the finch feeder a couple of days ago, on Sunday, deciding that it was time to let them go. All Sunday afternoon and most of Monday several Siskins continued to hang around in the branches over where the feeder had been, sometimes fluttering in the air, as if it must be there somewhere, or they were certain it would return. Even yesterday there still were a dozen or two Siskins in the pines, a few visiting the bird baths and feeders out front, and many chirping and calling.

But this morning – Siskin silence.

Yesterday morning I was working outside for a while and noticed the pines getting louder and louder with a congregation of Pine Siskins. Three came to one of the bird baths for a drink, and three or four more perched in some low limbs of an oak, but many more of them seemed to be gathering in the pines. Their chirping and zhrrreeeee calls got louder and louder, until their voices drowned out just about everything else around. But it was not unpleasant – in fact, I’m going to miss that unusual, twanging zhrrreeeee when they’re gone, and probably all the sense of lively activity that they bring, too.

The morning was cool, and the sky had clouded over, turning the daylight gray and pensive. All of a sudden, a flock of Pine Siskins – maybe two or three dozen – rushed out of the pine tops and away, flying north, almost as if they were flinging themselves into the wind – and the pines fell silent. For some reason, the rest of the yard suddenly became quiet, too. The titmice and chickadees deserted the feeders, a Red-bellied Woodpecker flew away, two Juncos, several Robins and a Chipping Sparrow darted up from the ground and into the shrubs.

Was that it? I wondered. Had the Pine Siskins just left us for their homes in the north? No. A few minutes later, there was one lone Pine Siskin singing from the very top of a pecan tree, and not long after that several more returned to flutter all over the feeder in the back yard again. So their morning flight was nothing unusual, I guess. But at the time, it seemed like a preview of their departure, bound to come before too long.

About 8:30 this morning a gray-brown thrush with prominent dark spots on its breast and a wide-eyed look perched for just a moment on a low branch on the edge of our yard. It flew into thick shrubs before I could get a good look, and I wasn’t able to find it again later, so I’m not sure, but think it may have been a Swainson’s Thrush, passing through on its migration north.

At about the same time, a Louisiana Waterthrush sang from very far down the creek, almost too far away to hear at all. It sang three times, but was so distant that it was almost like a wish or a wisp of my imagination, though it was real enough, the first of the season here. Although I’ve been listening for their loud, ringing song – usually the anthem that marks the arrival of spring here – I have not yet heard one in their usual territory along the creek in the woods behind our house.

I also have not yet heard or seen a Black and White Warbler or a Blue-headed Vireo, usually our other two earliest migrants, and harbingers of spring. Maybe I’m just impatient, but a quick check of my journal notes confirms that in previous years, all three of these species have been here by now.

Meanwhile, almost all of our resident birds are singing now so the early mornings sound like spring – Carolina Wren, Cardinal, Phoebe, Titmouse, Chickadee, Pine Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Eastern Towhee, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Bluebird, and House Finch, plus the quuurrr calls of Red-bellied Woodpecker and whinny of Downy Woodpecker, the kleer! of a Northern Flicker, the clucking of a traveling Pileated Woodpecker, the squeaking of a Brown-headed Nuthatch and the coo of a Mourning Dove. A little later in the morning, there’s often the kee-yer call of a Red-shouldered Hawk. A couple of Mockingbirds sing now and then, but for the most part I don’t think they’ve really gotten serious yet.

Some of our winter residents are singing, too, including the sweet, plaintive whistles of White-throated Sparrows and the lively jumbled tune of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Every now and then I hear the ti-ti-ti of Golden-crowned Kinglets in the pines, and there are still lots of Pine Siskins chirping. Dark-eyed Juncos are more quiet, feeding on the ground or in the grass or low branches. Small flocks of Cedar Waxwings still perch in the trees and send out sprays of their high, thin seets. Yellow-rumped Warblers chase each other in and out of shrubs, calling check!

Flocks of Robins are scattered over grassy yards, and several have begun to sing, and there are still a few Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles, and even a few Rusty Blackbirds, plus several Brown-headed Cowbirds, though not the large blackbird flocks of January and February.

I hadn’t seen or heard one for a while and thought they might be gone for the season, but this morning a vividly-colored Yellow-bellied Sapsucker spent more than an hour working on the lichen-covered trunk and large branches of a pecan tree in the front yard. Its throat and crown looked like shimmering silk, intensely red. Its back blended into the rough gray, black and brown bark of the tree. Its belly glowed a warm yellow-tan, streaked with charcoal.

The morning was very cool, with a soft blue sky and sunlight often muffled by low white clouds. For a long time, the Sapsucker moved methodically up one large fork of the tree, tapping for several minutes at one spot, then moving on to another. Finally, it rested. It stopped and clung to the side of the trunk for several minutes, then lifted its head, turned it to one side and inserted its bill into one of the holes it had been working on.

After several more minutes of resting, it did the same thing again and then began to make its way down and around the tree, inserting its bill into holes, and only tapping a little bit now and then. Although I had not tracked exactly where it went, I think it was retracing its path up and around the trunk, inserting its bill to look for sap in the holes it had earlier made or worked on.

All this time, it did not call or mew. The only sound it made was its tapping on the tree.

Cedar Waxwings are among the most elegant and attractive birds, with sleek black mask edged in white, velvety gray-brown back, an upswept crest, lemon-yellow breast, and exquisite touches of gleaming red in the wing and yellow at the tip of the tail. All winter long, I enjoy hearing their high, thin calls, marveling at the way a flock moves together as one in flight, and admiring them when they perch in the top limbs of bare trees at the end of a day, facing the sun and turning to gold in the last of its light.

But! At this time of year, they often congregate in the two Savannah hollies around the front entrance of our house to eat the red berries – and make a mess. We came home from Kiawah to find at least four dozen or more eating holly berries and perched in the high bare limbs of the pecans and water oaks over the sidewalk and porch and driveway, dropping blotches of purple poop everywhere.

Yesterday I made the mistake of leaving my pickup in the driveway under a tree, and when I went out to run an errand late in the afternoon, I found it so encrusted with the droppings of Cedar Waxwings I had to clean off the windshield before driving – and then went straight to a carwash and spent half an hour scrubbing before doing anything else.

The birdbaths in the front yard have to be rinsed out two or three times a day at least, and I finally just emptied one and turned it upside down, and I don’t dare sit on the porch in my usual spot – with a dozen Cedar Waxwings perched in the limbs directly above me.

Oh well. It’s a small price to pay, I know. And it can’t be long before all the holly berries are gone. It’s probably a good reminder that Cedar Waxwings are not here for my benefit or to give me pleasure – if anything, they have more right to be here than I do.

So I shouldn’t complain – but it helps!

A great blue heron, that almost spectral image of a prehistoric past, rises majestically out of the marsh on big, bowed, misty gray-blue wings, then settles some distance further on, disappearing into the confines of a ditch.
John Hay, “Migrants in Winter”

Last week we spent three days on Kiawah Island, off the coast of South Carolina, and enjoyed a welcome change of scene – from the woods and fields of the Piedmont, which in these last straggling days of winter had begun to seem gray and bleak and dreary, to the wide open expanses of the coastal marsh and the white sandy beach of a barrier island. With me, I took The Way to the Salt Marsh, a collection of essays by John Hay, whose eloquent writing about the marsh, beach and wildlife of Cape Cod turned out to be a good companion.

Much of Kiawah is a golf resort, but large areas of marsh and beach have been protected, and its habitat still attracts a wide variety of shorebirds, wading birds, raptors, songbirds and other species.

This time our trip was short, but we packed the days full and had a great time – thank you, Janet, Bruce, Rebecca and Maggie! Our generous hosts. And thank you, Clate, for lots of beautiful photos! (For a larger view, click on each photo.)