The day began with the song of a Wood Thrush, lyrical, flute-like notes drifting up through the leaves of the woods from somewhere down around the creek. The morning was cloudy and gray, the trees restless in a light breeze. I stood for several minutes in a fine, barely perceptible sprinkle of rain, feeling very lucky, just listening to the unexpected song, impossibly lovely and increasingly uncommon here. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s one other Wood Thrush singing in our neighborhood this spring, in a wooded area behind a small pond. Each year, there seem to be fewer, and each year I think that maybe we won\u2019t hear one at all \u2013 so when I do, it feels like a gift. <\/p>\n
From around the same area near the creek came the sharp WHEET-sit <\/span>call of an Acadian Flycatcher, the bright whistle and tumbling notes of a Louisiana Waterthrush, the buzzy song of a Northern Parula, and the less-frequently heard dry, rising and falling cow-cow-cow-CAWP-cawp-cawp-cawp<\/span> of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. <\/p>\n A Pine Warbler trilled in the pines all around the edges of the woods, and very active Blue-gray Gnatcatchers called spee.<\/span> A Yellow-throated Vireo sang in the trees behind a neighbor\u2019s yard, a Red-eyed Vireo deeper in the woods, and a Great-crested Flycatcher called breet<\/span> and whreep.<\/span> The cries of a Red-shouldered Hawk soaring very high in the southeast sounded made it sound much closer than it was. <\/p>\n A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird made frequent trips to the feeder, now and then buzzing over to me and hanging in the air, coming closer and closer, checking me out. A couple of times another hummingbird zoomed past her like a warning shot, maybe the male, but a male never came to the feeder while I was watching, though their twittering calls were all around. The nest I watched a female construct four weeks ago sits empty on its pine branch, so I assume she\u2019s built another somewhere else.<\/p>\n Rain clouds hung low, gray and dark all day, with occasional sprinkles, but despite the gloomy weather, there was a surprising amount of bird activity around our yard and woods. Now and then a breeze brought the summery scent of gardenias, now in bloom. I don\u2019t think birds were unusually active today. It\u2019s just that I happened to be out at the right times. Some of the observations were typical of an early summer day but others were surprising and interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The day began with the song of a Wood Thrush, lyrical, flute-like notes drifting up through the leaves of the woods from somewhere down around the creek. The morning was cloudy and gray, the trees restless in a light breeze. I stood for several minutes in a fine, barely perceptible sprinkle of rain, feeling very […]<\/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\/303"}],"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=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}