For me, the song of a Louisiana Waterthrush is the anthem that officially announces the arrival of Spring each year. Cardinals, Chickadees, Pine Warblers and many other year-round residents have been singing for some time now, and a Black and White Warbler or a Blue-headed Vireo are usually our earliest returning migrants. But when the song of a Louisiana Waterthrush rings out from down in the still-gray woods around the creek, it sounds like a fanfare \u2013 loud, clear notes heralding the rush of musical birdsong that\u2019s just about to begin.<\/p>\n
This year, I was beginning to worry because its arrival here was later than usual. There\u2019s been a steady, slow spread of development around the area, and over the past eight years we\u2019ve seen a noticeable change in the kinds and numbers of bird species that nest here. So when I heard the song this morning, it really made me smile. Of course, it remains to be seen whether it will stay around or not, but I\u2019m hopeful.<\/p>\n
We also heard the spee-spee<\/span> calls of our first Blue-gray Gnatcatcher this afternoon, in trees around the back yard, and at the same time, the nasal ank-ank<\/span> of a Red-breasted Nuthatch in the woods nearby. At least one Red-breasted Nuthatch is still coming to our feeders, though not as often as earlier in the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For me, the song of a Louisiana Waterthrush is the anthem that officially announces the arrival of Spring each year. Cardinals, Chickadees, Pine Warblers and many other year-round residents have been singing for some time now, and a Black and White Warbler or a Blue-headed Vireo are usually our earliest returning migrants. But when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}