Early one afternoon, a female Scarlet Tanager flew to the shepherd\u2019s crook that holds a large green fern on the rail of our back deck. We had just finished lunch and were sitting at the kitchen table, and I saw her from there, through the glass in the door. Muted yellow with olive wings, a relatively small thick bill, she looked pretty in an understated way. After a few moments, she flew to a table then to the top of an umbrella, to the deck rail \u2013 and away.<\/p>\n
A male Scarlet Tanager still sings nearby now and then, but not constantly, and occasionally I hear their chick-brrrr<\/em> calls in the trees, an expressive, electric call, a sound that\u2019s more than a sound, a shivering, pleasant, confiding feeling.<\/p>\n The back deck seems to be a favorite spot for several birds \u2013 or maybe it\u2019s just that it\u2019s an easy spot for us to watch through the kitchen windows. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds come and go from the feeder frequently, and the moat in the middle of the feeder \u2013 filled with water to discourage ants \u2013 has definitely become a favorite watering hole for Tufted Titmice, Carolina Chickadees, American Goldfinch \u2013 and at least once, a Brown-headed Nuthatch. I\u2019ve put a shallow clay saucer of water nearby on the deck, in the shade, but so far the small birds still prefer hanging upside down on the wire that holds the hummingbird feeder to sip from the little moat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Early one afternoon, a female Scarlet Tanager flew to the shepherd\u2019s crook that holds a large green fern on the rail of our back deck. We had just finished lunch and were sitting at the kitchen table, and I saw her from there, through the glass in the door. Muted yellow with olive wings, a […]<\/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\/976"}],"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=976"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":978,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976\/revisions\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}