Wednesday’s dramatic dawn brings a brief encounter with a Sharp-shinned Hawk and a flyover of five Red-winged Blackbirds in addition to the regulars.
On Thursday, it’s a chilly 59 with heavy fog at 6, a bit of sweater weather in high summer. In the hanging fern, four strapping youngsters squat, alert and ready to go, hungry and silent at 6:24 AM.
Two small mysteries have caught my attention and reminded me of how little I know of the nooks and crannies within mere yards of where I sit. To my right, over the top of an intervening roof, birds constantly congregate as if there is an easy feeding opportunity. I don’t think it’s feeders: more likely there are scraps available from the establishment along the river. The House Sparrows, in particular, seem to spend half their time over there these days. Then right across the parking lot, an American Robin often flies up under the eave of a garage and disappears. I’ve seen this off and on for months, but I must have missed the first fledging event there, and I’ve not wanted to trespass so I can peer up at the nest.
Downy Woodpeckers are finally active again close by, singing and flying about. A silent individual, perhaps a juvenile, works the narrow branches of a dead ash visible through a window in the silver maple along the river:
I’ve just about given up on the Warbling Vireo when it sounds off weakly at close to seven. A few more days and I suspect it will be off to molt. There are no hotspot records at all of the species in the last week of July and first week of August, before it reappears during southbound migration.
Speaking of no records, I wait in vain once again this morning to fill in the Canada Goose’s last gap of the year. How can it be that after 52 years, one stubborn week out of 52 remains empty of goose records?
I lurk a bit by the outside stairs, watching Yellow Warblers and blocking frustrated, aggressive Ruby-throated Hummingbirds from accessing the feeder. As usual, a Louisiana Waterthrush shows up at the confluence, its calls and song echoing loudly across the parking lot. Despite an uptick in promising activity, I head in for the day as a large flatbed carrying concrete blocks shows up and idles, a substantial advance in the construction of a first responders monument in the vacant lot at the corner of 10th and Pennsylvania.
Descent of the Robins
As I’m driving back from picking up antenna data after dinner, a robin flushes from the Hollow stream where it had been getting a drink, and I can hear it clucking among the Wood Thrushes up on Sapsucker Ridge. Back on the balcony after 7 PM, I watch small groups of robins fly back over the top of the same ridge, returning from a spell of feeding on who knows what. Urban robins have a characteristic return-to-roost from the ridgetops and hollows: a series of two or more steep swoops where they pull up at the last minute each time, as if they have calculated exactly the angle of the final rapid plummet into their roost tree. Five or six emerging from the same spot fan out in different directions, dropping into distinct locations around the confluence.
At 7:50, a pair of Common Ravens flaps silently across the Gap from north to south, and a third trails close behind. Perhaps it’s a juvenile, but there’s no way to tell at this distance. The trio disappears into Plummer’s Hollow.
Into the Void
Despite the constant feeding and twittering, I’m thinking it’s too late in the dusk for any House Finch to fledge this evening. Nevertheless, not only are the parents about, but one or two others as well, perhaps offspring from earlier broods. A general air of excitement exists, with constant communication between fledglings and adults, even though I’m sitting a few feet away.
At 8:06, one youngster rears it head and shuffles up to the guano-encrusted rim of the nest, peering about. It still has a patch of yellow in its gape, and a few tufts of down on its head. As its parents perch on the nearest wires, it looks this way and that: will it go? will it stay? It’s got 30 yards of hostile pavement in all directions. This has got to be incredibly daunting, something like that first time you were tossed into a swimming pool, perhaps.
After a long minute of staring, it’s off! As it flutters weakly away from home, it is flanked by its parents, who chirp the entire time. The new fledgling banks right but doesn’t lose much altitude, and, perhaps having long considered its maiden flight, or having received specific instructions, it somehow executes a perfect landing in the middle branches of a silver maple to the right of the confluence. The last glimpse I have is of it perching awkwardly on a horizontal branch where it will presumably spend the night.
The others settle down after that. It will be interesting to see what happens to them if the predicted severe thunderstorm materializes.
A Grosbeak and a Warbler…
The excitement isn’t over yet. Once again, the Warbling Vireo sings, but I’m more interested in the single note of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak from close at hand. They’re scarce at this location, and this one is likely to be on the move. Somewhat miraculously, she lands within inches of where the Downy was visible in the morning, allowing me to snap a passable shot:
Within seconds, the Blackburnian Warbler that had been singing perches within inches of her. I can’t make out whether it’s male or female at this distance, since the males, I am guessing, are already molting their spectacular breeding plumage for duller migrant garb (I wonder if that makes them less likely to attract undue attention during the multi-thousand-mile-journey?).
After a few moments, both disappear again, and the air becomes very quiet. Dragonflies head south, perhaps early migrants as well. Two robins vie for wire space in front me; one is triumphant and chases off the other, then it, too, departs.
By 8:50 PM, all is quiet except chittering Chimney Swifts and an occasional Gray Catbird. Even the robins are mute. By 9, there’s nothing left.