After an anomalous 5:55 AM Blue Jay, it’s the quietest balcony-bird dawn of the summer. Crickets and background insects buzz, traffic roars, and finally, a Northern Cardinal. But everything is pretty faint.
I get restless and head to the Crossing around 6:40. A Great Blue Heron flushes from below the bridge and heads downriver.
The sodden month continues, but today, the early weather doesn’t threaten rain. Down the tracks toward Tyrone, American Crows are pecking at something in between the rails.
Loud croaking behind: two Great Blue Herons lift off the river and head toward Plummer’s Hollow, circling several times over the woods, then disappearing around the bend of Sapsucker Ridge. They croak excitedly, or agitatedly: it’s hard to tell with herons.
One white-tailed deer, then another, picks its way gingerly across the tracks, heading toward terra avium. Maybe they see me; maybe they don’t. Five in all.
A hybrid train goes past, reeking of garbage, but the deer are already long gone.
The mosquitoes in terra avium are truly horrendous. I poke my head in from the tracks for a little while, but the most I can see is a disheveled Carolina Wren.
Back at the bridge, an adult Bald Eagle cruises upriver.
Down in Flames
After 5, it’s back to the balcony for what promises to be a pleasant evening. At first, there’s a deafening buzz of cicadas, announcing the most beautiful sunset of 2023.
A few feet from me, a male and two female House Sparrows fly in to peck at some cinnamon rolls a neighbor has flung onto the roof.
Cedar Waxwings gather for a bit in their favorite perches along Bald Eagle Creek. A sound I’ve never heard here before issues from somewhere in the confluence, across the river. It can only be a Sharp-shinned Hawk, but I never see it.
At one point, ten Common Mergansers, lit up by the brilliant sunlight, zip past nearly at the level of the crest of Sapsucker Ridge, flying east. A bit before eight, seventeen Mallards follow the same flightpath.
The first American Robins don’t return until 7:30, and only 29 in all come back to the area before dusk. The sunset reaches its peak at 7:44 PM and quickly fades.
Flame shifts to gray within less than a minute, and then it all looks threatening again.
I’ll definitely visit the next time I’m in North America. We need to catch up.
I've seen those EPIC crates before. I wish I knew when they were coming so I could film them going by - material for an amusing little videopoem.