Sunday: heavy fog at 6:50 AM, 51 degrees. It starts with an American Robin. Chimney Swifts and American Crows heard, but impossible to know how many there are. At 7, a Carolina Wren calls from upriver somewhere, and six minutes later, a Bald Eagle passes over low enough to see.
Monday: lighter fog today below a gibbous moon; 51 degrees again at almost seven. A White-throated Sparrow has arrived and is making its flight call from a perch somewhere along the creek. Crows caw at the edge of hearing.
An unstoppable, wren-like, staccato chittering starts up from a construction zone above 10th Street, along Bald Eagle Creek. The growing local Canada Goose flock comes in low through the fog—two from the east, then 85 from the west. Song Sparrow NFCs issue from the edge of he parking lot.
In a rare moment of intense curiosity, I walk over to check out the continuing staccato. I should have guessed: Red Squirrel. It hushes for a moment, staring at me from the upper branches of a short tree; then, even before I walk away, it starts up again.
Merlin claims to have detected a flyover Pine Siskin among the commuter House Finches and American Goldfinches, but I’m not buying it, and the tape later reveals nothing. A new species for the time being is the Swamp Sparrow, from the weeds across the confluence, night-calling around 7:30.
By 7:40 the ‘tseep’ing of migrant sparrows, a feature of the October balcony, has died down. The local White-breasted Nuthatch swoops in and lands in a catalpa again today. I realize that I haven’t seen a Mourning Dove anywhere in weeks. I wonder if our locals, like the blackbirds, are out on the grain fields somewhere? I remember that it s always quite difficult to find doves in the hotspot this time of year.
Cache & Carry
My reverie is broken by the excited calls of a pair of Tufted Titmice who enter stage right, working their way through the trees from the river to the creek, then up beyond the 10th Street bridge.
Moments later, a titmouse perches momentarily on a wire across the parking lot, with a large sunflower seed in its beak. The other returns and together, they head back the way they came. Nice sign of fall—a caching mission. Titmice stock up for the winter, hiding seeds of all types in an array of places they somehow remember during the lean months. Nuthatches and chickadees do this too, which could explain what these three ‘TCN’ species are doing in the winter, when I get to watch them every day from the balcony.
Blue Jays also cache as well, and I frequently see them flying around town with acorns in their beaks. I’m a bit unclear whether the ones passing through do this to pick them up on return journeys, or whether it’s only the local population.
At 8:01 the outline of a Great Blue Heron passes over in the fog, and then a Song Sparrow begins to sing, intermittently.
Monday Evening
Every day, I work inside and miss the sunny part after the fog burns off. At 6:47 PM, I sit out to catch the end of it all, but it’s too late. A single House Finch goes over, and a Northern Cardinal ticks a few times around seven. The Chimney Swifts are gone.
Foggy Bottom Wednesday
With a bit more time this morning, I sit out at 6:33, again in heavy fog, again at 51 degrees. At a quarter to seven, a faint Song Sparrow can be heard from the confluence, and then a chorus of White-throated Sparrow ventriloquists commences, their flight calls echoing from perches in streetside and streamside trees. The red squirrel joins from across 10th Street, soon aided by another along the river.
Right before seven, I hear the sound of a mass of Chimney Swifts overhead—they’ve not left town entirely yet! Last year’s final day was October 8th, so we’re getting close.
A bit after seven, a cardinal starts to tick and then a Swamp Sparrow does its flight call from a perch somewhere. Not once have I heard a Swamp give any other vocalization here.
A remarkably consistent suite of species—19 in all—is out and about in the pea soup this week. The Bald Eagle goes over once again, downriver as usual, while the Great Blue Heron’s ghost flaps up the creek. The fog is so thick today that the low and loud Canada Geese remain an “X” on the eBird list: I can’t make out even their shapes.
195
A long-distance wanderer, the American Golden-Plover, made its first official hotspot appearance as an NFC at five minutes to 1 AM on September 28th. It’s Plummer’s Hollow 200 #195, and either #221 or #222 overall, moving up the hotspot to a multi-way tie for 56th place all-time in Pennsylvania. Plummer’s Hollow remains in the 5th slot for the year statewide.
At some point during the foggy week, I finally install Benjamin van Doren’s Nighthawk, a program that scans audio files and categorizes all the calls, assigning identifications and levels of probability. A typical two-hour NFC recording can take 10 or 15 minutes to process, but the results are outstanding. The recent nights that brought some mysteries still being reviewed, as well as the golden-plover, have multiple Least Bitterns, other golden-plovers, and the requisite thousands of thrushes and warblers.