As the sun came up this morning through pink and gold clouds, a Carolina Wren sang a brilliant song to begin this new year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I couldn\u2019t have wished for a happier start. The small, bold brown bird with a long, expressive tail and a glorious song is one of our most common birds. Plain in appearance, but amazing when it sings \u2013 its voice is big and beautiful. It\u2019s a perfect example of the uncommon beauty hidden in plain sight all around us still, in birds and in other parts of the natural world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this time of year, of course, very few birds sing. So the song of a Carolina Wren is all the more welcome. And it doesn\u2019t only sing \u2013 Carolina Wrens trill, fuss, burble, rasp and chatter, and sing several different songs. They are active, inquisitive birds, cinnamon brown on the head, back and tail, with a buffy brown breast, white throat, a white stripe over the eye and a long, down-curved bill. And they\u2019re fascinating to watch \u2013 here, there and everywhere around the yard \u2013 foraging in leaf mulch on the ground, exploring the bottoms of tree trunks, rustling in the bushes, coming to a feeder, or checking out crevices and corners on the deck, or any any stray objects or containers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I stepped outside a couple of hours later, the air felt cold and crisp, and the day was clear and softly bright, perfect for a walk through the neighborhood. Around our own front yard, a Downy Woodpecker clung to the hanging feeder, while Carolina Chickadees and bright red Northern Cardinals flitted in the branches of water oaks and visited the tube feeder. Carolina Wrens continued to sing and trill and fuss. Several White-throated Sparrows scratched in leaf mulch beneath the feeders and under the shrubs, along with a warm-yellow Pine Warbler. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet chattered jidit-jidit<\/em>, and flew into a Savannah holly tree, showing a clear view of its round head, perky face, white-ringed eye, and flickering wings. I heard the calls of Red-bellied Woodpecker, Eastern Towhee, Tufted Titmice, and the distant caws of American Crows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One surprise was a solitary Song Sparrow that came to the hanging block feeder and stayed there for several minutes. It\u2019s the only Song Sparrow I\u2019ve seen here so far this winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But my favorite sighting of the morning \u2013 after the Carolina Wren \u2013 was a Hermit Thrush. There\u2019s one that seems to be spending the winter around our yard, but I don\u2019t see it every day. I noticed some rustling in the faded leaves of the azaleas, and when I checked it out, saw a spotted breast, and a bright round eye and wary, watchful face turned up toward me. It seemed to be looking right back at me from its well-screened spot. I didn\u2019t watch too long, not wanting to disturb it. I\u2019m just happy to know it\u2019s here, and that now and then I can see it, or hear its gentle chup-chup<\/em> calls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Walking through the neighborhood, I stopped often to listen and watch more closely, and in the end, counted 27 species in all, but that was only by searching intently. Overall, birds were few and far between, with many species missing. So I\u2019m afraid I couldn\u2019t help feeling that the most important observation of this New Year\u2019s Day was of how very, very few birds I could find. The contrast between the beauty of the day and the absence of so many birds was sad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After leaving our own yard and following the road through the neighborhood, there were long stretches when I could see and hear no birds at all \u2013 and this has not normally been the case in winter here. Many yards, woods and fields looked and sounded empty, not a bird to be heard or seen. One pretty Eastern Phoebe hunted from low branches in a tree near the edge of the road. A Turkey Vulture soared, and two Black Vultures rose up from trees along the road ahead of me, white wing patches flashing silver as they climbed higher. Blue Jays cried, and there were the scattered calls of more Chickadees, Titmice, Carolina Wrens, Red-bellied and Downy Woodpeckers. On the edge of one yard there was a little flurry of small birds feeding in the grass and in the road, no more than a dozen in all \u2013 House Finches, Pine Warblers, and Eastern Bluebirds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the old field across the road from our subdivision, two Northern Mockingbirds sat in the tops of a very dense, tall privet thicket. The field seemed otherwise quiet, except for the\u00a0chur-whee\u00a0<\/em>calls of an Eastern Towhee, though I\u2019m sure there were some other birds hidden somewhere in the privet and pines and weeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Near the far north end of the field, about a dozen Cedar Waxwings were feeding in a very scraggly, small, thin tree that was hung with some kind of red-berried vine. They seemed to be quiet \u2013 usually I hear Cedar Waxwings before seeing them \u2013 but maybe the traffic noise of the highway nearby was masking their calls. I stayed for a few minutes just to admire their sleek, polished plumage and gleaming colors, among the most elegant of birds, even in such a weedy, tangled setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I looked and listened for a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, but couldn\u2019t find one today, though I have been seeing one or two most days. But there are certainly far fewer Sapsuckers here than in previous winters. I also didn\u2019t see or hear a Yellow-rumped Warbler \u2013 not one \u2013 and this is a species that only a few years ago arrived here each winter in such large numbers that they seemed to be everywhere, the most common bird around. And perhaps most sadly, this year I have not found a single Golden-crowned Kinglet \u2013 and I\u2019ve looked and listened for them often. This is the first winter in 19 years when Golden-crowned Kinglets have not been present in our neighborhood over winter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So the morning was a jarring contrast \u2013 beautiful, sunny, cold and crisp and bright, with the song of a Carolina Wren and the glimpse of a Hermit Thrush \u2013 and yet, so very few birds that it felt tragic. And it is. A tragedy in progress. We are right in the middle of it, as recent scientific reports have confirmed. A major study published in mid-September of last year reported that nearly 30 percent of all North American birds have disappeared in the last 50 years \u2013 more than three billion birds. Populations of even many of our most common birds have suffered alarming declines.* <\/p>\n\n\n\n This news from scientific studies is not something that\u2019s happening in other, faraway places \u2013 it\u2019s happening right here at home, and we can see it every day, though it\u2019s often hard to grasp the difference between what we see today \u2013 and what we might have seen ten or twenty or fifty years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think again of the Hermit Thrush, half-hidden in the branches of a shrub, near the ground, looking out at me with a wide round eye. I could only see it partly, the soft brown head and expressive face, and the spotted breast, the cinnamon tail. It looked \u2013 and was \u2013 so vulnerable, as if looking out at me to ask what is happening to its world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n