The Plummer’s Hollow 200 stands at 135 species after days and nights of frenetic migration. With the return of cold weather, I’ve seen nothing new this week, and the nocturnal spectrum is an utter void. New species have probably been trickling in, however, and we’ll find out which ones this weekend. It will still be April, and the goal will be to reach 150 by Sunday night.
Tuesday Dawn
Hard freeze warning heeded: it’s 27 at six, 11 degrees below normal. I’m not out long; it’s a bit tedious to have to once again for the last time don the entire polar outfit I use for sub-freezing sits. Happily, the Yellow-throated Warbler is still here as of 6:11 AM, singing from a distant perch. The Osprey, as it now does every day, emerges from its roost spot downriver and heads out of the Gap and straight over town.
In 51 minutes, the list makes it to 25 species, but Chimney Swifts are not on it. I envision them huddled in a chimney for warmth; unlike swallows, they’re typically early risers when the feeding’s good.
Later, it is not hard to note the total absence of bumblebees, hornets, stoneflies, and butterflies that had begun to make the balcony seem like June. Reality check.
Hearing a Worm Eating
Today, Wednesday, it’s a milder 41, and still almost entirely clear. At 5:50 AM, once again, there is no breeze.
Nothing much has changed since last week in the order and fashion of bird activity at dawn. Before six, it’s the same ol’ crowd: American Robins from 4, and the others sounding off at random intervals: Song Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Eastern Phoebe, Common Raven. A new early riser is the Blue Jay, and now the Eastern Towhee can be heard as well before the hour, though I have yet to (ever) see it from the balcony. Then a Tufted Titmouse and a Chipping Sparrow, and the beginning of a long and loquacious day for the local American Goldfinches. Males have transformed into their spectacular yellow plumage, but unlike most other local species, they won’t be breeding for months yet.
Even Common Grackles and House Finches are now audible before 6 AM, though the House Sparrows, which not long ago were getting up early, are now mute. All in all, I detect 12 species by 6 AM, but not a single one up in the air yet, even though sunrise is in 15 minutes.
By five after, the first Brown-headed Cowbirds go over, and the sky starts to fill. A Downy Woodpecker calls from the river and then flies past me, right into town. Downies are doing this more now, perhaps because they can find greater safety in the emergent foliage on the fruit trees along the avenues than during the winter when they stuck to the creek and river vegetation.
Like clockwork, the Osprey is out of the Gap at 6:08, but this time it heads northeast, following the crest of Bald Eagle Mountain out of sight. Visions in its head of luscious trout in some stream or pond that direction?
A casualty of the thickening foliage, a dark object flies quickly downstream below the confluence: A Green Heron, perhaps, or Belted Kingfisher, or even a sandpiper (Spotted as well as Solitary have already shown up in the NFCs): too dark and fleeting to even guess the size and shape.
Again, for the third day, the Yellow-throated Warbler sings! I must confess I was not listening for this species from my balcony during occasional sits last spring at this time, so it could be the species is a regular. These last few years, I have searched assiduously for it in terra nullius, and in the Yellow Warbler bottomlands, without luck.
At 6:11, a Worm-eating Warbler trills. I think of this species as a denizen of deep woods on mountain slopes; Plummer’s Hollow bears the distinction of having recorded the highest numbers in Pennsylvania (22 on May 15, 2021), and we have numerous breeding pairs on the property. It is quite possible this one is the selfsame as a few days ago, still hanging about the confluence.
By 20 past, the local Warbling Vireo is doing its flatter version of a House Finch. The early leaf-out has blocked any easy views or photos of this species, but it should be well on its way to finding a mate by now, and I think they’ll be easier to see in a month or so. A Chipping Sparrow then begins to trill, confusingly overlapped with the Worm-eating.
Here’s a surprise: a Ring-bill Gull in dirty plumage shows up and flies erratically above my head and the confluence, finally heading slowly upstream. Later, I find one on the spectrum that lingered above the field not long after midnight last night: that was odd, as they usually can be heard just once or twice, rarely thrice, as they go over in migration. Could it be the same one? I wonder what its story is.
I’ve noticed that the robins’ territorial disputes seem to be over, but now it’s the turn of the Downy Woodpecker. A bit of confounding behavior today: one chasing another, they land nearby in a sycamore, and for a brief moment, I see the chased individual flattened against a horizontal limb, with what appear to be the middle rectrices of its tail feathers splayed out. I can’t make out quite what is happening, and then they’re off again.
I’ve figure out that a good way to end a weekday balcony prowl is to wait until the swallows come out, but today, once again, they are no shows. At least on cold days, evening seems to be more their thing. The local Fish Crow shows up to perch briefly on its power pole by the river, and then at 6:53, after quite an absence, what I take to be the junkyard raven alights on another pole, by 10th Street, and stares intently at me. It croaks and I can see its breath: the mercury has now dropped to 37.
Evening is for Swifts and Swallows
After 7:30 PM the sky belongs to a roiling cloud of 50-or-so Chimney Swifts, and a pair each of Barn Swallows and Northern Rough-winged Swallows. Both swallow duos are chasing and diving at each other in what I take to be courtship activities; at one point, one of the Barns rests on a near wire and begins to chitter at its (potential?) mate.
Quite soon after a near-cloudless 8 PM, the swallows have gone to roost, Mallards are dropping like rocks onto the nearby river, and the last Mourning Doves, grackles, and starlings are heading off as well. The last Turkey Vulture flaps home from somewhere beyond Sapsucker Ridge at 8:08, the last swift zooms in from the Gap and past the balcony at 8:12, and the last cardinal sings loudly until abruptly ceasing at 8:15. We pass the robin point, and their yelling increasing in volume; they begin to flit about. An errant Mallard pair arrives, and then it’s all robins. As usual, I’m willing to let them outlast me, but I think they’re all done by 8:30 PM.