{"id":2572,"date":"2025-08-09T22:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T03:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=2572"},"modified":"2025-08-20T16:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T21:17:10","slug":"blue-gray-gnatcatcher-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=2572","title":{"rendered":"Blue-gray Gnatcatcher"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What a gentle, lovely, surprising morning! Amazingly cool for early August, and the back yard trees were&nbsp;<em>full<\/em>&nbsp;of bird calls and songs, seeming more active than usual recently.<em>&nbsp;<\/em>A Great Crested Flycatcher called&nbsp;<em>whreep<\/em>&nbsp;and stayed around for several minutes. A Yellow-billed Cuckoo gave several hollow, knocking&nbsp;<em>ka-ka-ka<\/em>&nbsp;calls. Tufted Titmice and Carolina Wrens and Carolina Chickadees sang, and Northern Cardinals peeped. An American Goldfinch scattered its flyover notes. Crickets and other insects chirped. And the&nbsp;<em>pik-a-tuk<\/em>&nbsp;calls of a Summer Tanager laced through the trees. The nasal&nbsp;<em>onk-onk-onk-onk<\/em>&nbsp;of a White-breasted Nuthatch tracked its progress through the woods as it came closer and closer. A Downy Woodpecker whinnied. A Red-bellied Woodpecker rattled.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ruby-throated Hummingbirds came frequently to the feeder, often dueling and chasing. I watched one visiting the red blossoms on a hanging geranium plant. I don\u2019t think it found much nectar there, but it was pretty to watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I was very happy to hear the sharp little check-mark call of an Acadian Flycatcher, which I\u2019ve not heard for a few days \u2013 maybe because of very heavy rain for much of that time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a long stretch of extreme heat in July, early August brought us several days of rain and cloudy days and much cooler temperatures. The rain was welcome \u2013 but at times torrential, falling steadily and heavy for hours. Now this morning, the temperature is only 69 degrees. There are still a lot of clouds, but soft sunlight is beginning to break through. Carolina Wrens burble and trill and sing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then \u2013 maybe happiest of all \u2013 a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher called its wispy&nbsp;<em>spee-spee!<\/em>&nbsp;And another Blue-gray Gnatcatcher responded with its own&nbsp;<em>spee<\/em>&nbsp;calls, the first time I\u2019ve heard them in trees around our yard in quite a while.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What a gentle, lovely, surprising morning! Amazingly cool for early August, and the back yard trees were&nbsp;full&nbsp;of bird calls and songs, seeming more active than usual recently.&nbsp;A Great Crested Flycatcher called&nbsp;whreep&nbsp;and stayed around for several minutes. A Yellow-billed Cuckoo gave several hollow, knocking&nbsp;ka-ka-ka&nbsp;calls. Tufted Titmice and Carolina Wrens and Carolina Chickadees sang, and Northern Cardinals [&hellip;]<\/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\/2572"}],"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=2572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2573,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions\/2573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}