{"id":689,"date":"2010-10-13T21:19:57","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T02:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=689"},"modified":"2010-10-13T21:19:57","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T02:19:57","slug":"trees-full-of-golden-crowned-kinglets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=689","title":{"rendered":"Trees Full of Golden-crowned Kinglets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday and today, the oaks and pines around our house have seemed at times to shimmer with the high, light calls of an unusual number of Golden-crowned Kinglets. They come and go all day. This afternoon I went outside one time when I heard them moving through. The first one I saw showed a yellow-gold crown, the second, a bright orange crown. Both were low among the branches, moving quickly around, gleaning tiny insects and calling their crisp, almost whispered ti-ti-ti<\/em>. With bold black and white stripes surrounding the colorful crowns, white wing bars and greenish backs, they brought flashes of color and animation to the trees \u2013 which have seemed remarkably quiet for the past couple of weeks or so. For some reason, I have seen fewer migrant species here this fall than in any year I can remember, though I\u2019m not completely sure if there were fewer birds \u2013 or if it\u2019s because I\u2019ve been outside less often or been too busy and preoccupied and not fully observant when I do get out.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a Northern Flicker called kleer!<\/em> from an area just inside the woods with a good many dead standing pines. A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker mewed from further away in the woods \u2013 I haven\u2019t yet seen the first one here, but its calls are familiar, and it\u2019s nice to know they are back. Several times I\u2019ve thought I heard the nasal call of a Red-breasted Nuthatch, but I haven\u2019t yet seen it and am not certain.<\/p>\n

Other sounds of the warm, sunny fall day came from our year-round resident birds \u2013 the loud kee-yer<\/em> of a soaring Red-shouldered Hawk, the softly-trilled song of a Pine Warbler, the tsup<\/em> of an Eastern Phoebe, the chatter and fussing of Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees, the bouncing burble of a Carolina Wren, an Eastern Bluebird\u2019s blurry churry-churry<\/em>, the squeaking calls of Brown-headed Nuthatches, the chuck-chuck<\/em> and rattle of a Red-bellied Woodpecker and pink!<\/em> of a Downy, the harsh squawk of a Northern Mockingbird \u2013 and a silent Brown Thrasher stood on the rim of the bird bath.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yesterday morning as I walked up the slope of our driveway shortly after sunrise, twelve Chimney Swifts came flying out of the north in a pale blue sky flecked with small orange-pink clouds. They flew spread out widely, moving directly from north to south, as if on a mission, flew up and over me, and disappeared. I don\u2019t know for sure that they were leaving \u2013 but they looked as if they were, the way they flew in one direction, with purpose, not circling around, like a perfect image of the last birds of summer, finally on their way.<\/p>\n

Last Friday, October 8, we still had one female Ruby-throated Hummingbird coming to our feeder. I haven\u2019t seen one since then, though our weekend was busy so I\u2019m not sure they all have left.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday and today, the oaks and pines around our house have seemed at times to shimmer with the high, light calls of an unusual number of Golden-crowned Kinglets. They come and go all day. This afternoon I went outside one time when I heard them moving through. The first one I saw showed a yellow-gold […]<\/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\/689"}],"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=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":691,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions\/691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}