The north winds came, chasing away summer holdouts and bringing sounds of winter. The night spectrum has grown sparse, with the last of the Gray-cheeked and Swainson’s thrushes giving way to a steady trickle of Hermit Thrushes, the odd Common Yellowthroat, myriad sparrows, and what are almost certainly Yellow-rumped Warblers. And ducks are back on the pond at last.
Siskins and Snowbirds
A whirlwind trip to DC on Friday and Saturday featured a pair of Red-tailed Hawks at the Jefferson Memorial and then perched on the Holocaust Memorial Museum, while a Bald Eagle wailed and dove above the Tidal Basin. In the background were the angry sounds of a Palestine protest mixing with the hopeful cheers of an autism rally.
(We headed straight for the votive Sacred Ibis mummies at the Natural History Museum.)
Back from the Land of the Fish Crows, I find myself getting spit on in the field neck at 6:57 AM on Sunday, courtesy of inaccuweather. Cloudy, 47, very windy: altogether raw but not raw enough to dampen the White-throated Sparrows and Eastern Towhees, who start up from all sides of the field and edges. A Brown Thrasher I can only describe as angry flies in to within a few feet of me in a locust and makes a rasping call I haven’t heard before. The rain comes down harder; I head back to the car for a raincoat.
More and more birds are gone: House Wrens, Common Yellowthroats, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, most of the warblers, Gray Catbirds, and that’s fine. I’m not one to revel in late birds and strays—on a personal level, it’s important to me that they get where they’re going, which is usually where it’s warmer. This year, other than the Mourning Warbler/s, almost all the birds seem have left one or two weeks before last year, with almost no stragglers. I would like to think that means a hard winter, but I’m agnostic at this point.
By 7:30, the rain is slashing from the west and the wind is ripping over the top of Sapsucker Ridge. American Goldfinches are around, and Northern Flickers call and fly about, making some clacking sound as well. Two buffeted flocks of Cedar Waxwings bounce around, hugging the top of Laurel Ridge, as a Winter Wren, a Swamp Sparrow, and a Lincoln’s Sparrow call from the goldenrod. And then it begins to clear.
At 7:40 AM, the wild sound of Pine Siskins, high overhead. They hang out with goldfinches but seem a lot more feral, though that will change when Mom puts out the birdseed. I picked the first one up on the antenna earlier in the month, and since them, reports have been coming in of their arrival in numbers to the area. The Winter Finch Forecast definitely called this one correctly.
By a quarter to 8, the dawn chorus (still 95% White-throat) has finally quieted down. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet sings, and a small flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers is tossed about overhead, chipping as they hit the trees.
I ascend the neck to the top of First Field, watching a Bald Eagle swooping and diving over Sapsucker, with a hovering Red-tailed Hawk nearby. On days like this, Red-tails love to hover motionless along the ridgetop, facing the grassy sward of Interstate 99 below. They tend to stay in one place for several minutes, then fly a few hundred yards, then hover again.
The weather is rapidly clearing now, but the wind has not abated. A Pileated Woodpecker, a European Starling, and a flock of American Robins all seem like fragile toys but somehow are able to withstand the gale.
At the top, the Norway spruce provide shelter to a twittering mass of “snowbirds,” Dark-eyed Juncos that stow away in here sometimes by the hundreds. This is the first good group of the fall. Some Golden-crowned Kinglets are about as well. A flock of robins, more than 50 Cedar Waxwings, and a dozen American Crows suddenly appears in disarray, followed by a Sharp-shinned Hawk.
Return of the Ducks
I head back down the field and work the edges to see if any warblers or vireos are left. Nothing out of the ordinary is hanging about, and I don’t have time today to check for Fox Sparrows along Bird Count Trail in the deep thickets.
Back around the buildings, Yellow-rumped Warblers are in the walnuts and goldenrod, but no Palms. A small flock of Eastern Bluebirds arrives silently and suddenly to the wires along the barn bank. In the small, old apple tree where the driveway curves, a cloud of sparrows flushes: Chipping, Field (still several dozen of these, Song. They love this area, with easily-accessible water and tons of cover.
That wild sound again: a Pine Siskin is perched at the top of a black walnut.
After a drive down a bird-forsaken Hollow, I hoof it along the tracks to the pond, and, seeing ripples in the water, approach with caution. Unexpectedly, a mixed male/female flock of some 40 Mallards are at the close end, feeding and doing that proto-mating behavior they seem to engage in most all of the time. If I’m not wrong, this may form the core of the winter group; I don’t know if they’re locals or long-distance arrivals. They’re not terribly skittish and when I walk by above them, they don’t flush. No other species are here yet, but this annual flock tends to attract an American Black Duck or two toward the end of the year, and there are several other waterfowl the Plummer’s Hollow 200 still lacks as well that could show up.
Black Mass of Crows
Monday is barely a freeze, but I suit up in the winter gear nonetheless for the luxury of feeling toasty warm on the balcony at 35 degrees. The only hint that there was a frost is the ice on the windshields. No killer, yet; not until next week.
The dawn chorus here today consists of a a couple excited robins at 7:07 AM, followed immediately by a Song Sparrow that sings twice. Then ten minutes of silence until the House Finches, siskins, and goldfinches start going over.
The Canadian air, invigorating as it is, does something to the crows. At 7:14 AM, I am scanning the clear sky in the east when a churning mass of some 75 of them, packed tight together, emerges from Bald Eagle Mountain. They’re too far away to hear, but the sight is spectacular, quite the contrast from the long, strung-out line of Corvid traffic I usually watch go over my head (I suppose it’s the same flock).