After many days of hot May sunshine and plenty of rain toward the end of the month, the old field that runs along a dead-end road between our subdivision and highway 441 is a lush mess of grasses, kudzu, privet, blackberry and honeysuckle vines, wild grape, purple thistle, rough wild roses, pokeweed, chinaberry trees and dozens of other weeds and weedy trees, and a dense and spreading small woodland of pines, sweet gums and oaks. Bird songs there, especially early in the morning, have to compete with the highway\u2019s busy, loud traffic.<\/p>\n
This year for the first time in a decade, there\u2019s no Blue Grosbeak singing in the field. I saw a male there once in the spring, but apparently it didn\u2019t stay.<\/p>\n
But there is an Indigo Bunting that chants from a perch on kudzu-covered bushes in the middle of the field, and two or three White-eyed Vireos, Eastern Towhees, Mockingbirds, Brown Thrashers and Cardinals in abundance, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher \u2013 and Brown-headed Cowbird. A pair of Red-tailed Hawks can be seen around here almost every morning, often perched on utility poles overlooking the highway, sometimes sharing a pole, and soaring later in the day.<\/p>\n
And for the first time in three or four years, there\u2019s a Yellow-breasted Chat in the field. That\u2019s a happy surprise. Several times I\u2019ve thought I heard its harsh chet-chet-chet-chet <\/em>calls, but couldn\u2019t find it for sure, and I just thought it was wishful thinking on my part. But two days ago, Saturday morning, I heard the call, this time repeated again and again as the bird moved quickly from bush to bush, and finally I saw a quick flash of deep gold-yellow as it flew. I haven\u2019t gotten a good close look yet, but its call is familiar and distinct. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s nesting in the field or if it\u2019s there every day, or maybe it\u2019s nesting in woods nearby and just visiting the field now and then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After many days of hot May sunshine and plenty of rain toward the end of the month, the old field that runs along a dead-end road between our subdivision and highway 441 is a lush mess of grasses, kudzu, privet, blackberry and honeysuckle vines, wild grape, purple thistle, rough wild roses, pokeweed, chinaberry trees and […]<\/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\/555"}],"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=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions\/557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}