Today was another in a stretch of unseasonably warm spring days, sunny, hazy with pollen, with temperatures in the upper 80s or 90 by afternoon. But the mornings are cool and pretty and bright with birdsong, with green leaves now opening on just about all the trees, even the white oaks, and dogwoods blooming like lacy clouds all through the woods. It\u2019s the time of year when almost every day brings something new \u2013 with summer birds arriving, winter birds leaving and migrants passing through. It would be hard to stay inside at all if it weren\u2019t already getting so hot by midday.<\/p>\n
A Louisiana Waterthrush continues to sing along the creek in the woods behind our house, and a Northern Parula sings from the edge of the woods nearby. Black-and-white Warblers and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers arrived some time last week \u2013 I heard and saw the first ones on Friday, April 2 \u2013 and today a Black-and-White Warbler has been singing from trees all around the back yard \u2013 a squeaky, high, unmusical but pleasant song. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers have seemed uncharacteristically elusive so far, but I do hear their spee-spee<\/em> calls here and there. <\/p>\n Chimney Swifts also arrived some time late last week, and yesterday morning for the first time I saw three as they chittered and swept overhead. <\/p>\n Yesterday morning I also heard the song of a Yellow-throated Vireo for the first time this spring \u2013 a burry, rich, four-phrase song, musical and expressive. It may have arrived over the weekend, when we were not here. So far it hasn\u2019t come close enough to see, staying hidden in the woods.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also the rusty jingle and creak of too many Brown-headed Cowbirds around. I heard several just today, in different spots in the neighborhood. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, our winter birds are drifting away, though it\u2019s hard to tell for sure when they\u2019ve gone. I haven\u2019t seen or heard a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Dark-eyed Junco or Hermit Thrush since late March. But White-throated sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers and Ruby-crowned Kinglets still are here \u2013 all singing \u2013 and lots of Cedar Waxwings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today was another in a stretch of unseasonably warm spring days, sunny, hazy with pollen, with temperatures in the upper 80s or 90 by afternoon. But the mornings are cool and pretty and bright with birdsong, with green leaves now opening on just about all the trees, even the white oaks, and dogwoods blooming like […]<\/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\/502"}],"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=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}