Dawn of the Icterids
Thirty-one degrees and crystal clear at 6:24 AM, but it takes 15 minutes for the Carolina Wren to wake up, and seven more after that for the junkyard raven.
Already by 6:53, then once a minute, groups of 19, 18, and 37 Rock Pigeons up and leave town. They’re always very early to leave on these rare clear days.
The Song Sparrow ‘tseeps’ at 6:56, but it doesn’t sing today. Meanwhile, a Carolina Wren by the 10th Street bridge competes with another over by the drive-through bank, and at three minutes until seven, the first European Starling is already here, singing and perched, then calling to others that begin to show up.
Seven by Seven
Just before seven, three American Crows wing south along the crested of Bald Eagle Mountain, and I hear the first Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, and House Finch. Seven species by seven. For comparison, on the most active and vocal days of May, from the best sit spots up on the mountain, I can pull in around 50 species by 7 AM, so we’ve got a ways to go. Here, the upper limit is probably about 40.
It’s calm today, so I’m not expecting raptors and I’m not disappointed. At least the waterfowl are out, though: Mallards at 1 total (where’d they all go??), Canada Geese at 48, and two Common Mergansers, the first of these going east at 7:02 AM, and the other west, a minute later.
A faint White-breasted Nuthatch and American Robin call and at 7:06, five robins leave town together heading east over the Gap.
The Flock
I have my camera ready today, expecting blackbirds to my left around 7:16. Naturally, the first, huge flock, mostly several hundred Common Grackles, flies by silently in front at 7:09, from the right, then heads north up the line of Bald Eagle Creek.
Four minutes later, another 60-or-so grackles follows, this time going out through the Gap. In the first flock, Brown-headed Cowbirds and Red-winged Blackbirds are mixed in; I’ll not discount the possibility of a few Rusty Blackbirds, but until these flocks start vocalizing, it would be impossible to tell unless they were to fly directly over the building. They obviously have no interest in landing along the river here, even though it won’t be that long until these or other grackles set up shop here. At this point, they are most likely to be hanging out in a tree swamp up Bald Eagle Creek somewhere; I might go look for them this weekend.
As If It Never Happened
The second to last species of the morning is a Northern Flicker calling at 7:11. That’s 19 species by eleven minutes after seven, yet it takes all the way until 7:25 for the Downy Woodpecker to finally make it 20. Around this time, two Red-winged Blackbirds fly at me from over the Gap, where various crows are cavorting about. They nearly always find something to breakfast on along the railroad tracks.
At 7:34 AM, the sun peeks out as the main body of Canada Geese comes out of the Gap and overhead, honking slightly. In the blinding sunlight, the only birds left singing are the House Finch, which thinks it’s Spring, and starlings. A well-executed Killdeer from the flock that perches in the poplar makes me almost think a couple of these plovers are over on the grass by the interstate. Some almost flawless Eastern Meadowlarks respond from the flock on the sycamore.
To me, nothing is different today than yesterday, except that it’s a bit warmer. And yet, waterfowl moved today and not yesterday. There was no continuous chorus today as there was yesterday. The Northern Cardinal didn’t make any noise, the titmice and chickadees were mostly mute, the Song Sparrow didn’t sing, the Carolina Wrens didn’t ‘teakettle.’ For once, we had two days in a row with nearly identical weather, but the avifauna didn’t give a repeat performance.
Twenty species in all, though, which seems to be the new baseline for mid-February.
At 7:45 the last active bird is the starling; everything else is gone and quiet, feeding where I can’t see or hear. As human noise takes over the empty sky it’s almost as if none of the above ever happened and we live in an avian desert. This is why I sit.
Mallard Pond Update
After work, I take a quick walk down to the pond. There’s not much about except for a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers and a pair of Red-tailed Hawks that traverse the forests on both sides of the Gap. The hawk perches helpfully on the last spur of Bald Eagle Mountain, in surveillance mode.
The winter waterfowl crowd at the pond seems to have departed for the season. Left are three pairs of Mallards, swimming placidly and not overly concerned about my presence. We’ll see how the pond holds up in March when the main duck migration comes through. I’ll have the NFC microphone up by then, as well, to catch calls and wing whistles, some of which can be reliably identified to species. My other hopes are landings on the river, which are quite unusual, and dawn flybys at the balcony, always a challenge to ID. Our only hotspot nesters are Wood Duck, Mallard, and Canada Goose, with Common Mergansers likely not too far away. The rest will be tough, but the number of waterfowl species I get will likely determine whether we reach 200 overall this year or not. Wish me luck!