The out-of-towners are here. On Sunday evening, the star of an otherwise uneventful balcony sit is a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Making not a sound, it erupts from the confluence and flew straight north at about eye level, over the parking lot, long tail trailing. It disappears into the trees along Bald Eagle Creek above 10th Street. I’ve heard one from here once before, on a morning last summer, but this is my first sighting.
Not long after, a gleaming Red-tailed Hawk circles overhead for a few minutes and surprisingly, nothing attacks it. Meanwhile, multiple Ruby-throated Hummingbirds vie for turns at the feeders, attacking each other. They stream off into the sky in different directions, zipping this way and that, so it’s hard to tell how many are around. At point, one flies so close it rustles what’s left of my hair.
The Smoke Returns
On Monday morning, the widely anticipated third round of Canadian wildfire smoke is here. The pall isn’t oppressive yet: my eyes don’t even burn in this greasy 65-degree dawn.
Another Green Heron passes by today, this one from up the Little Juniata River somewhere at 5:37 AM. It flies quickly overhead, cutting the confluence corner and disappearing out of sight beyond Burger King.
Once again, the solitary local Barn Swallow is about. So strange for the member of such a gregarious species to be utterly alone this time of year.
Under the hazy, crystal-clear sky, the dominant movers in the trees this dawn are migrant Yellow Warblers. There might be dozens, for all I can tell. I can distinguish four separate individuals, feeding in the sycamores and chipping non-stop, including a brilliant yellow adult male and a greenish-yellow immature.
An Unwelcome Interloper
At 5:38 PM on Monday I have chance to sit out for some 40 minutes. The first thing I notice is what happened to the Common Grackles who abandoned Grackleville. There they are, a quarter-mile off to the north, draped in a group of dead snags along the interstate.
Still alone, the Barn Swallow hunts silently in the pall, among a few Chimney Swifts, while hummers zoom across the sky. An insistent ‘weesy-weesy-weesy’ from the nearby confluence trees at first sounds like a Black-and-white Warbler, but something’s off. It doesn’t match, nor is it an American Redstart, either. Then it hits me: Blackburnian Warbler, matching perfectly a lesser-heard song in the Merlin repertory. This likely makes it a molt-migrant, perhaps from our very own hollow or spruce grove.
Just after 6 PM, a ‘killy’-ing male American Kestrel emerges from the trees along the creek, above 10th Street, and flaps quickly past me, something dangling in its talons. Still calling, it disappears into the confluence canopy. Moments later, a Fish Crow emerges from where I last saw the kestrel and circles about; then the kestrel reappears and heads back up the creek. The crow’s having none of it: silently, it batters the falcon in a decidedly lopsided attack.
Back and forth they go in front of me, as another Fish Crow, presumably its mate, hangs about but doesn’t get involved. The other local birds don’t pitch in, either, but I notice an uptick in Yellow Warbler chips from the nearby trees. At one point after a particularly hard hit, a long, reddish-orange feather from some part of the small falcon is knocked out and flutters gracefully off. The kestrel has had enough, and it flies off toward the interstate somewhere. Triumphant, the crow rejoins its mate, and they head off northward.
Now that coast is presumably clear, an American Robin decides to post up to the wire and gives its aerial predator alarm call, a high-pitched ‘seet’ that it continues for over ten minutes until finally tapering off.
Night of the Teetertails
On Tuesday I rush up at dawn to grab more NFCs. Louisiana Waterthrushes, I would think migrants by now, are still singing in the Hollow, and they’re joined by numerous Acadian Flycatchers still on territory, while Wood Thrushes, Scarlet Tanagers, and Red-eyed Vireos are definitely past their peak.
Saturday night was a wash, literally, with rain much of the time. Sunday night was quite active, however. Warbler ‘zeeps’ started up by 9:40 PM, and at 10:30, the second Swainson’s Thrush of July went over. Throughout the night, a smattering of ‘ups’ and ‘zeeps’ were the signatures of warblers on the move, with an Ovenbird at one point, and a Yellow Warbler chip at another.
The star of the night was the normally solo Spotted Sandpiper. Multiple individuals passed over the field starting at around 11 PM. Then, at close to dawn—4:52 AM, to be exact—calls of three or four individuals together continued for around a minute. Unless it was a single flock circling over the field for some reason, I would guess a rather large group was passing overhead, which seems quite unusual for this species.
Race Against Time
Monday night was a bit calmer, and the featured species was the Grasshopper Sparrow, with three occurrences of its long, high ‘seep’ call. Three American Redstarts and a Hooded Warbler went over as well, but surprisingly, not a single identifiable ‘zeep’ warbler.
Insect noise is still blessedly at a minimum, but that will be ending soon as the katydids crank it up. Sadly, most of the nocturnal flight calls in August will be missed, blotted out by the deafening chorus. Some heavy migrant nights are tantalizing, I learned last year, the first time I recorded at the height of the katydids. Every once in a while, during a lull, crowds of too-blurry-to-identify migrant calls are picked up at certain frequencies. The best case is a cold dawn, when the katydids shut up. Even an hour or so without them can result in some spectacular finds.
As you can see, I’ve kept up with the trickle of NFC IDs this summer, though I haven’t had time to upload them. The real challenge is May: I’m whittling away at the huge pile of call snips, but I still have over 2,000 to ID. The year’s considerable file of unknowns may yet yield new species for the Plummer’s Hollow 200, but I’m not taking any chances. In a couple weeks, the first of the missing diurnal migrants will be coming through, and it could be December before I have enough time to finish the May calls (given that September and October will generate thousands more NFCs until they taper off sharply in November. I’ll be out scouring the woods edges and canopy for Blue-winged Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Yellow-breasted Chat, and Prairie Warbler.
Any Day Now
Every day, the nestlings grow louder; any day, they’ll fledge. It has been over two weeks since they hatched. Fern and her mate are at the nest constantly now, attending to their four gangling, yellow-gaped offspring.