Thursday is a gray dry 33, with the slightest hint of Northern Cardinal over highway noise all the way at 7:06 AM. On it ticks for another seven minutes, until joined by the faint notes of a Winter Wren. Then a Carolina Wren in the distance, then nothing. No song; no flight.
At half past, a tight, fast flock of around 55 Rock Pigeons hurtles over the end of Bald Eagle Mountain. All this time and I still don’t know where they go every morning. Next year I think I’ll investigate.
Snow flurries on the balcony; snowflakes nearly imperceptible, as train after train roars through. A faint Tufted Titmouse. Graupel. I don’t have time for this.
[Winter Wren above highway noise]
Trio
On Friday, my weather app says it’s 22 but my car tells me it’s 32. I’m leaning toward the latter, as the ground isn’t frozen. Yesterday it reached the forties, so perhaps the pond is unfrozen as well.
The first sound from the gloom is the tick of a cardinal up in the rocks, and then, right at 7, the Winter Wrens start up. First is the one on the cliffs, then another calls from the narrow fringe of bank vegetation between the tracks and the river. Both break into song, one barely waiting for the other to finish, or sometimes overlapping, over and over.
Improbably, at 7:06, a third, also up in the rocks but a bit further along, also begins to sing. I believe this is the first time in my life I’ve ever heard three Winter Wrens synching their extraordinary carols.
The pond is mostly frozen and not a duck is in sight. A couple American Crows come by, carcass-bound, but not much else is stirring. Repeatedly, the brakes of school buses sound from the full stop across the river, then a fourth Winter Wren sings from that direction. The crescent moon and Venus get closer.
Back at the crossing, the main body of crows has arrived from beyond Tyrone where they sleep. Golden-crowned Kinglets are all about the gate area, nearly tame, as they tend to be in the winter. A titmouse tags along, and a Downy Woodpecker flies over the tracks. A fifth Winter Wren calls from close by but stays out of sight, like all the others.
Most of the racket on this quiet morning is the red squirrel who lives in the brush and vines just the other side of the tracks.
The faint smell of urine permeates everything: there’s an inversion layer, so this could be wafting in from anywhere. Meanwhile, the sky shows a lofty ceiling, but nothing flies through it but a European Starling and a few American Goldfinches.
Back in town, American Robins are getting excited, and from the balcony, the sun is now rising over the nose of Laurel Ridge, heading south every day.
A Series of Improbable Sightings
After a lengthy hiatus, it’s time for a dawn sit around the barn on Saturday. Already by 6:48 AM, the White-throated Sparrows are kicking up a fuss along the far edges of the field, but I’m sticking close to the buildings today out of deference to the Nimrods.
Sparrows do not disappoint today. In amongst the scratchy songs and clanks of Song Sparrows and the relentless chorus of white-throats, a couple of Fox Sparrows can be heard, an American Tree Sparrow flies in, and then the unmistakable call of a Savannah Sparrow, right up against the barn. All this happens before 7, before anything is making noise along the tracks.
A first, second, third Carolina Wren echoes, one after the other and then together, way louder than anything else. Dark-eyed Juncos twitter. At least one Hermit Thrush clucks softly from a deep tangle up by the powerline cut, and a single Winter Wren calls. Then, almost imperceptible, the clangy ‘reep’ of an Eastern Towhee, just once, from this species’ winter refuge, the large privet and barberry jungle above the corner of the field.
The dawn ruckus has almost entirely died down by 7:13. Over the last half hour, the sparrows exited their night roosts silently, some coming from as far away as the spruce grove and the top of the powerline cut overlooking Sinking Valley. They then socialized and vocalized for a while, and now they’ve settled down to feed.
Next up are the White-breasted Nuthatches, which seem particularly common this year. They are making their full range of sounds as they forage across the black walnuts in the yard. By 7:30, a Pileated Woodpecker is drumming loudly on Laurel Ridge and an Eastern Bluebird is singing, as a few robins exclaim from the grape tangles. Strong sunlight torches Sapsucker Ridge.
By 7:45, the sun is largely gone, but the juncos are just getting started. I pish a bit around the garage, and they come boiling up out of the grass and goldenrod and into the black locusts.
The goldenrod that blankets the field is partly responsible for the diversity and numbers of sparrows, as it provides excellent shelter and feeding opportunities. I search it a bit for the Savannah Sparrow but all I can turn up is clanking Songs; I would suspect that Fields and White-crowneds are also about, and who knows what else?
Around about this time, the hope is that the more unusual birds will linger until Christmas Bird Count. 2023 is year number 52 for our local circle, Culp, and it remains a tradition as bigger or bigger than Christmas itself for many of us. Normally, it would be next weekend, but this year we have postponed it until the 23rd.
Talking Turkey
At the bridge, another rather cryptic species in the hotspot this time of year is in full view: a Great Blue Heron, fishing just upstream from the bridge. Several crows are also hanging about within a few feet of it. I’ve only gotten the heron, probably this same individual, once over the last month. Amazing how it is able to stay undetected.
Speaking of undetected, it’s only 8:30, but not a single Winter Wren is in evidence along the tracks. I know they’re here, but they’ve gone radio silent. I do a little playback just to test, but nothing. I have to wonder how undercounted this species is due to its cryptic nature. Perhaps I missed the wrens of December in past years because I wasn’t in the habit of walking along the tracks at dawn.
Some putative kinglet noise from out of Redstart Swamp resolves itself into a nice little flock of titmice, golden-crowns, and a pair of Brown Creepers who spiral up a large black locust snag, calling and singing to each other. A pair of cardinals comes down across the tracks from the privets up on Laurel Ridge, followed by a Downy Woodpecker, as the local Blue Jays begin to yell. The pond is now mostly open, but still devoid of waterfowl.
Walking back, I am surprised by eight massive shapes flying across the Gap, some 200 feet up. My search image discards crow and raven as my binoculars connect, and the brief thought of Black Vultures is banished as I realize it’s a flock of Wild Turkeys. It blows me away every time I see these birds flying high, in this case finding a much more efficient way of getting from Laurel Ridge to Bald Eagle Mountain than risking the tracks, river, and highway. Another species I’m not seeing regularly these days, out of nowhere. Another one that needs to make a similarly spectacular appearance on the Christmas Bird Count.
Back at the bridge, the heron is long gone, but a crow is taking a bath by itself, in a pool in the middle of the current, surrounded by rocks.
The last surprise of the day is a calling Red-shouldered Hawk at the confluence. This is the second time in 2023 I’ve detected one from the balcony. Last year, someone got this species on the Christmas Bird Count for the first time since 1988 - talk about a cryptid!