All around us, all across the country, there is a low-intensity conflict being fought. It divides neighborhoods, communities, even vacant lots. Combatants, dressed in red and black, struggle with each other, often violently; to those of us who remain uninvolved, it is often impossible to tell what is so important that it has to be fought over, day after day. Every day, the same: the combatants arrive, face off, and then jump into the air at each other. It’s hard to tell if permanent injuries result (one suspects they don’t), but the more one watches this spectacle, the more one realizes that there are battle lines, invisible to the rest of us, crisscrossing seemingly every bit of space.
I’m talking, of course, about that most American of birds, the American Robin. Hundreds of millions of them are in combat stance these days. From my balcony, every morning around seven, the singing and calling that’s been going on since before five ebbs, and what I presume are two males and a female (who spectates) arrive to the parking lot below my feet. Every day, they spar, and exclaim angrily while they’re doing it. I’ve noticed that one comes and goes from the left, out of sight, toward 10th street. The other, with his mate (I presume), appear to be nesting or getting ready to nest under the eaves of a garage across from me. I think this is the same pair that had wanted to nest on my porch or the neighbor’s, but was put off by my constant presence. Perhaps it’s the same pair that built its first nest on a low step of our fire escape last year, only to see the nest ransacked and eggs eaten by a predator.
As a geographer, what most impresses me is how robins fight over invisible territorial lines, very much like humans do. Obviously, many birds do this, particularly at the onset of breeding season, but none so viscerally and obviously as robins, from where I sit. The calling, singing, and constant flying about, particularly at dawn and dusk, are also part of territorial definition and defense, of course, but it’s these daily robin fights, along a line about a yard this side of a town parking lot, on and above my gravel lot, that are the most viscerally appealing. I would start a dedicated social media channel if I had the time.
In other news, the temperature dropped this dawn to 44, and it’s still clear. The contrails just sit in the sky and get fat. Today is supposed to be the hottest day yet, and the last of the heat wave (it’s only mid-April, for Heaven’s sake!).
I can report no real advances in my conspiracy theory: the junkyard raven, as you can see above, flapped out of its hiding place to perch on the pole for about twenty minutes, whence it called repeatedly. Then it took off into the Gap.
The balcony species count is once again in the mid-30s. I still can’t get it to 40, but I would have today except that the Turkey Vultures decided not to kettle over the ridge, and indeed, never showed up at all, at least not before I went back inside at 7:30. Though no other local raptors showed up, either (no early breeze), a migrant Northern Harrier flew straight and low along the ridgetop at 7:10 AM. Having slept locally, I think, it was up and moving north early.
Evidence of nesting: two European Starlings, accompanied, don’t ask me why, by a female House Sparrow, showed up below my feet with long dead grass or weed stems in their beaks. After they got what they wanted, I think from some vegetation along the side of my building, they headed back into town.
NFC Notes
The microphone has picked up very little this week. I’m hoping that will change in a drastic way this weekend. However, other than a handful of Chipping Sparrows, the only notable identifiable calls were the squawks of American Bitterns (here’s a nice one from 8:52 PM on April 8th) and the first Palm Warbler of 2023. The PAWA (PH200 #105) went over at 3:39 AM on April 13.