As the year rushes to an end, I’m caught in the slow and steady process of snipping, ID’ing, and uploading thousands of nocturnal flight calls, between graduations, holidays, and preparing for next year’s challenges.
Triple Double
Monday, May 11: 35, gray but clearing after downpours and the river’s turbulent again, which seems to be a regular end-of-year condition in these times.
Right out of the gate, at 7:16 AM, 25 Rock Pigeons dive and swirl in a tight mass as they make their way from town to ridge.
At the half hour, a Cooper’s Hawk skims the balcony, coming up low from Bald Eagle Creek, then up and over the rooftop toward Pennsylvania Avenue, screaming “kek-kek-kek-kek-kek.” Her partner is hot on her tail, calling at a slightly different pitch, and perching for a few seconds in the sycamore at my 3. The murmuration must be growing—good pickins’ for the winter.
A minute later, a pair of Bald Eagles circles up from the woods on top of the eponymous mountain, heading out across the Gap as if to take the freeway south down Brush. Something makes them change their mind, however, and instead they circle back around toward the towers, and head off north.
Six European Starlings show up, and suddenly it’s snowing out of a clear blue sky. There’s a bare breeze down here on the balcony, but a Downy Woodpecker hurled overhead suggests winds aloft.
As a squall arrives before eight, a pair of Common Ravens swoops down from the towers into the Gap. Flurries all about and most of the birds head for cover. Starlings, however, are oblivious, bubbling, creaking, and whistling through the storm.
Somewhere in the Twenties
On a cloudless Tuesday, it’s back to the pond, where 22 Mallards and the American Wigeon are shoveling about at the far end. A faint Hairy and loud Downy woodpecker are calling from the ridge, getting vocal again after a few weeks of relative silence. I have to wonder whether they quieted down during the gunshots?
Two more trios of Mallards are puttering about down along the riverbank. I catch a glimpse of a brilliant, almost white spot just below the scarlet ridgeline of Bald Eagle Mt. across the way. Something sits watch, almost certainly a Red-tailed Hawk, but the dawn sunlight is at such an angle and intensity that its breast appears red rather than white. In the ten minutes I have to spare, it never moves, and eventually I can make a clear ID.
Rush of Wings
Barn bank sit this morning, out before the sparrows. It’s another brilliant day in the teens or 20s, and Venus just keeps getting brighter.
The racket of White-throated Sparrows commences at the distant edge of First Field at 6:47 AM, starting up 30 minutes of calling, singing, and flying, almost entirely of sparrows and wrens, as the goldenrod erupts. A White-crowned Sparrow calls from close by, and a Fox Sparrow sings from a field edge, along with the regular crowd. At 7:07, the mellifluous note of an Eastern Bluebird, something I’ll always associated with warm, early spring days.
I’m startled by a whistling wind overhead, not far up. Two Mourning Doves are braking hard to get to their first feed. As always, they come from the direction of Tyrone or Grazierville, and I can only imagine that they fly so fast to avoid raptors. A few seconds later, another rushes over, and then a fourth.
I leave my phone on top of the car to chat with my Mom for a few minutes, and while I’m indoors, Merlin picks up the tail end of the second wave, including a Pine Siskin and a Brown Creeper. It’s spot on, too: Merlin does much better in the winter (December is all winter to me), when the air is clearer and the songs are fewer.
As I’m turning left at the bridge to head back into town, I glimpse five massive shapes crossing the Gap low, only a few dozen feet above the highway. Wild Turkeys, again.
In Tyrone, an American Robin is singing its heart out, like it’s March.
The Loudest Sunrise
Friday’s yet another gorgeous morning, this time on the balcony. By 7:11 AM, at 35 degrees, a robin is already singing from off toward Burger King. Pigeons and starlings fly about, then American Crows, and it feels warmer than it is. It certainly sounds warmer—for some reasons, birds are especially vocal today. Another robin starts singing from somewhere upriver by the train station.
The first Bald Eagle already went by, and now, around 7:40, a Golden Eagle comes in from Bald Eagle Mountain, heading southwest, unhurriedly. Glancing left, then right, it soars directly over the balcony, not more than a couple hundred feet up, its plumage catching the rays of the sun that haven’t yet made it to the balcony.
Bird activity is now becoming frenetic, between the American Goldfinches, House Finches, House Sparrows, Carolina Wrens, and a dozen types of starling vocalization. At 7:44, a pair of Red-tailed Hawks are up and past the towers, circling for awhile to the north, as if it’s the summer. I wonder if these are the same pair from back then, or new ones.
It’s now officially the loudest sunrise in months. Starling lead the cacophony, cheering, creaking, circling, plummeting, activity increasing as the sun makes it down to the shade. Two Downies are calling from different direction, one at the confluence and one at winter bird central, the grove of trees along Bald Eagle Creek above the 10th Street Bridge, topped by the poplar.
The Sky Belongs to the Crows
On Sunday, after a week of beauty, it’s back to leaden gray, and the skies are empty except for the crows. Today, back and forth from the pond, it’s the same four or five crows—ripping at something caught on the river rocks, then hanging about the trees above the privet jungle, then down to the button buck carcass, then over the ridgetops, back to Tyrone, and around again. Playing, fighting, exclaiming. For awhile, nothing else is in the air.
Granted, after a graduation party, it’s later today by the time I hit the tracks, so I missed first call. Well after 8 AM, with temperatures already in the 40s, the morning ducks are down to business. Eighteen Mallard drakes and 12 females, and a smaller duck that keeps disappearing into mud camouflage: the Green-winged Teal, latest we’ve ever had one around.
On the way back, the Redstart Swamp is alive with Winter Wrens and Golden-crowned Kinglets. One Downy Woodpecker after another calls. An adult Bald Eagle comes in low over my head, from the west, at first following the course of the river but then veering off over the toe of Laurel Ridge toward Sinking Valley.
The normally sparse riverbank is emitting the sounds of Hermit Thrushes, a rarity in this area. Not one, but two—good sign for the Christmas Bird Count coming up next Saturday. More Downies, and a Hairy.
Later, as misty rain sets in, we come upon the local flock starlings in the sycamore grove up by the train station. Something more than rain rains down on us as the crowd begins to synchronize its roar, then, on a dime, launches into utter silence. A few seconds go by. The mass starts up again. A minute or so later, they—or it—erupts in a synchronized crowd, off into town, a tight, shape-shifting oval of a couple hundred birds, or perhaps one bird spread across 200 bodies.
We have barred owls in the pines behind our house every winter. They start around this time of year. They are seldom seen. Is the Merlin ap sufficient for positive ID?
You mentioned blue birds. We had a flock of 12 to 15 birds male and female at our garden bb box 2 days ago. They were going in and out of the house that haeld a brood last year. I too have been seeing the bald eagles along the river near the lower quarry.