Back home in Georgia, today was hot, humid and sunny, with lots of big milky-white clouds growing larger and more towering as the day went on, and cicadas singing loudly. On a morning walk to check things out, I found birds still pretty quiet, but counted 28 species in all. The highlight was a still-colorful Blue Grosbeak singing energetically from the top of a small tree in a kudzu-draped thicket across the road from the old field. <\/p>\n
Other highlights included a pair of Brown-headed Nuthatches squeaking and flying from tree to tree; a Gray Catbird low in a bush, raising its tail to show the red-orange undertail coverts which I rarely notice; and three Red-tailed Hawks \u2013 one soaring, two perched in treetops and screaming back and forth to each other. <\/p>\n
Around our house and others, there were the usual yard birds \u2013 Titmouse, Chickadee, Cardinal, Goldfinch and a few scattered Blue Jays. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were busy around our feeder and flowering plants, and others zoomed past me as I walked \u2013 it seems to be a good year for them here. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers called spee<\/span> from bushes and trees. Bluebirds seemed very quiet and mostly out of sight. I only heard the short warbles of two or three. <\/p>\n A Chipping Sparrow gave one long dry trill from a small pine, and others foraged in the grass. Phoebes hunted quietly from low branches in shady yards. One distant Red-eyed Vireo sang in the woods, and several Carolina Wrens sang or trilled or fussed. One Great-crested Flycatcher called whreep<\/span>. Crows cawed, Mourning Doves cooed, a few Red-bellied Woodpeckers rattled. Downy Woodpeckers were pretty quiet but now and then called a quick pink!<\/span> Eastern Towhees called che-wink.<\/span> One House Finch sang a few cheery notes and others gave plaintive bleeps<\/span> as they flew.<\/p>\n Quiet Mockingbirds sat on wires over the field, no longer singing. But a White-eyed Vireo continued to call chick-a-perioo-chick!<\/span> from the faded, tangled weeds. <\/p>\n Three Turkey Vultures and one Black Vulture soared, and two widely separated Chimney Swifts flew silently over. <\/p>\n Conspicuously missing were Robins \u2013 when we left in late July, I usually saw several scattered around grassy yards; Barn Swallows \u2013 I think maybe they\u2019ve left the area where they nested; and Brown Thrasher, Summer Tanager, Scarlet Tanager and Acadian Flycatcher \u2013 I\u2019m pretty sure all of these are still around, but more quiet now. I did hear some short, hoarse cawps<\/span> from the woods that may or may not have been a Yellow-billed Cuckoo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back home in Georgia, today was hot, humid and sunny, with lots of big milky-white clouds growing larger and more towering as the day went on, and cicadas singing loudly. On a morning walk to check things out, I found birds still pretty quiet, but counted 28 species in all. The highlight was a still-colorful […]<\/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\/326"}],"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=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}