Monday’s a field day. It’s in the high fifties, cloudy, and humid, and the rain is gone, sort of. I’m sitting in the neck by a quarter to six, taking in the last 45 minutes of nocturnal flight calls.
Swainson’s Thrushes are peeping over in fair numbers, though according to the NFC record, and going by 2022 as well, it looks like they peaked around the middle of last week. Still in the mix are Gray-cheeked Thrushes and Wood Thrushes, as well as Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Scarlet Tanagers.
The first land-based bird, a Wood Thrush, calls all the way at 6:29, just as the NFCs are reaching their height (7 to 9 calls per second). Three minutes later and the Eastern Towhees start up, still competing with the NFCs, which take a few more minutes to fade away as the thrushes all descend to roost, feed, and sleep (not necessarily in that order).
These days, towhees are mostly doing nasal ‘tseeps’ and their standard ‘reep’ calls, but one keeps trying to sing the full “Drink your tea!” Again and it again, it gets to “your” and stops, and my brain fills in the last part. I would guess it’s the subsong of a juvenile, and judging by the misty weather and the sheer amount of towhee noise, it looks like there may be quite a few more out there today than there were last week.
A bit later, an Indigo Bunting sings, and then the very first indications of fall White-throated Sparrows emanate from one of their favorite habitats. Every years, white-throats return first to the best spots, and then their numbers swell into the hundreds before gradually dropping through the winter. At first, like today, they are quite skittish and shy.
Hooded Warblers have stopped singing, but not Common Yellowthroats. Both species, though still around, have already passed their peaks. Not the Field Sparrows, though: judging by the sheer volume of calls and a few songs, I think we are getting close to their peak. The state record is “only” 100 and the hotspot record half that, but I’ll have to be honest, I’ve never tried to figure out how many FISPs are about when they reach this point.
A nice surprise just before seven is the repeated call of a Red-headed Woodpecker, though I never see it. It’s off somewhere in the treetops, its vocalizations blending with several Red-bellied Woodpeckers.
Land of Lincoln’s
Following the normal pattern, I head for the second sit spot at the edge of the powerline right-of-way a bit after seven. I can already tell that warbler numbers are down and sparrow numbers are up, but this is partly because warblers have shifted to other food resources that appear to be higher up in the canopy. Magnolia Warblers and Black-throated Blue Warblers are still about, but already I can tell it’s going to be a Lincoln’s Sparrow day. For some reason, they are the least skittish of the sparrows here, almost as curious as the three wren species (Carolina, Winter, House) that I watch as they fust about on a single bent-over tree trunk.
It’s a work day but I have time, or so I thought. However, as the morning progresses, I realize that the field is bursting with Lincoln’s and Song sparrows as well as House Wrens. I am literally herding Song Sparrows across the field. There’s no time to look for rarities or estimate a number just for First Field. Hundreds? They’re not even close to peak yet. And as I suspected, along the edges, towhees are numerous as they were last October 8th, when the hotspot set the PA record with over 100.
The towhees are gorging on cherries, as are the Cedar Waxwings, but there seem to be an inordinate number of the latter about today.
Bug Feast
I head on to the Connecticut Corner sit spot to see what’s on the defoliated catalpa. Oddly, I haven’t seen another Connecticut Warbler since the ones I saw a couple weeks ago, and there’s no Philadelphia Vireo here today either. Red-eyed Vireos are still about in small numbers; pewees are absent, as are the rest of the flycatchers except for Eastern Phoebes, which will hold on into November, if we’re lucky.
There are more Hooded Warblers here and some other warbler species, but diversity is definitely way down. Where are the Palm Warblers? Where are the Ruby-crowned Kinglets? Another Indigo Bunting sings—late for it up here—and then in flies a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, first of the season and one of two for the morning. This is one of those rare mornings when I get to hear, if not see, all the woodpecker species (Pileated, Downy, and Hairy woodpeckers as well as Northern Flicker are also around, as usual).
And then comes the gorgeous, cascading song of a Winter Wren from the woods near at hand. As they reach their peak in migratory numbers, they can be found throughout the hotspot, I’ve discovered, in goldenrod and black locust areas as well as their favored niches, downed trees. Not until much later will they be restricted to the Hollow.
The ravaged catalpa is quite the draw, today, particularly for a Bay-breasted Warbler, some Hooded Warblers, and, as always, Cape May Warblers. The reason? Massive bug swarms. And this is also the reason for the concentrations of waxwings; it looks like they have found something even tastier than black cherries.
As I circle back around the field, herding sparrows, I notice that the top third of the tall old white pine over by the powerline is bursting with waxwings perching and sallying. As I approach, I can see them in the thick of the bugs, gulping as fast as they can. Various tallies get their number to 166 today, but who knows how many are on the hotspot right now?
Welcome to the Jungle
Tuesday it’s raining, somehow. Ophelia’s revenge, I guess. I wasn’t going anywhere anyway, and I scrap the dawn balcony sit. By mid-afternoon, work wrapped, I get antsy, and still not a single bird can be seen or heard from the balcony. Time to hoof it.
I head off through the junkyard on foot to do a sweep of the north end of the hotspot. The weather is somewhere between the 50s and the 60s and it’s overcast and misting droplets. Everything below the waist is soaked immediately, and half the plants seem to have seeds or stickers they need to get rid off. Fine, I’ll be their disperser.
Things don’t stay quiet long. Chipping sounds alert me to a fast-moving group of warblers flitting through the tops of the birches and aspens above the tracks on Sapsucker Ridge, heading west. One after another they sweep by, pausing only briefly. They appear to be ravenous. Mostly, it’s Bay-breasted Warblers, one of our most numerous warbler species in both migration periods. Cape Mays and Black-throated Greens are mixed in. Most of the warblers continue west, but some cross the tracks to the riverside forest. On that side, a few yards from me, a Downy Woodpecker is feeding on a staghorn sumac but freezes when it sees me pull my bins up. Black-capped Chickadees, always agitated, are also part of this mixed flock, as well as a more sluggish Scarlet Tanager, and the requisite Northern Cardinals who live around here all year.
When I reach the Plummer’s Hollow crossing I head down to the bridge, just in time to glimpse the bulk of a large bird flying upriver. Once on the bridge, its identity is not secret: the Osprey is not shy. It calls again and again, flies upriver, then over my head and downriver.
On the way to the pond, two silent Common Ravens appear, flying over the tracks and into the Redstart Swamp area. Moments later, an adult Bald Eagle comes out of the west, and the Osprey cries again. The eagle disappears, then suddenly it emerges again, and dives at close to a 90-degree angle toward the river. More noise from the Osprey, but unfortunately, I’m well below the tree line blocking a view of the river. I was hoping to see my favorite kleptoparasite try to snag a free fishy snack from the Osprey, as I’ve seen Bald Eagles do before.
As if that weren’t enough excitement for the day, a Red-tailed Hawk shows up, but ignores the ruckus below it and flaps over to Bald Eagle Mountain somewhere. This triggers a Pileated Woodpecker, which sets to cackling and not soon after, explodes out of that mountain’s foliage and heads over here to Laurel Ridge.
In an effort to avoid the many trains passing today, I plunge down into the Redstart Swamp to see if I can see any klepto behavior. When I reach the riverbank, the piscivores are long gone, but as a consolation prize I get a small crowd of migrant warblers deep in the undergrowth.
As usual, there’s nothing at the pond. This early, the most I might expect, like I saw two years ago, is a Blue-winged Teal.
Attack of the Killer Mosquitoes
As I return to the crossing, a Chestnut-sided Warbler lures me into the maze of well-manicured trails the local woodcutters have been carving out of the privet jungle. It’s a nice little patch on both sides of the township road that yielded both Mourning and Kentucky warblers this spring as well as Gray-cheeked Thrushes.
After this—and why not?—I cross the road to plunge into terra nullius, which for some reason remains untouched by the woodsmen. The first part of the route has been manicured by an unknown person or small group who have, in recent weeks, constructed a brick fireplace and used the trail grass they cut as tinder; it’s all stacked neatly against the side of the old railroad trestle, with a pile of kindling next to it. Whoever these folks are, they’re not trashy; they like to smoke flavored cigars, but they toss the packets in the embers when they’re done.
Beyond this area, though, terra nullius is a bug-infested hellhole right now. Put your hand on the wrong tree trunk and you’ll be mashing dozens of lanternflies. The trails are grown over, as there has been no presence of homeless encampments this year. The massive piles of trash from old encampments are all but buried. Waist-high plants that cut you and cover you with stick-tights blanket the way, and as expected, the area is thick with migrant birds.
I pish up a flock of American Redstarts, males and females, and then the trouble starts. Mosquitoes more voracious than I ever recall in the hotspot, even here in their epicenter, start to swarm me, but these aren’t the polite ones that give you warning. Silently, they go straight for my face, even my eyes, biting by the dozens. This is just another day in the woods in the Yazoo Delta, so it brings back some fond memories, but without bug spray, it’s a bit uncomfortable to bird right now. I’m out.
As I approach Tyrone, a juvenile Bald Eagle circles over town, but as when I left two-and-a-half hours ago, all else is silent.