The Balcony, 6:36 PM. Time to relax. Mammatus clouds but no thunder, no drops; a breezy 70ish with detergent-choked haze, sometimes smelling of wood smoke, or maybe Alberta, and definitely marijuana. An eddy of dumpster garbage stink, ready for tomorrow’s pickup. At the confluence, Common Grackles maneuver between the fly fishermen. The river is popping with fish tonight.
The most local Red-eyed Vireo trades monotonous phrases with the Warbling Vireo, from the same area of trees across the river, but I never see either. Up along the crest of Bald Eagle Mountain, around ten American Crows are flocking and perhaps frolicking, diving repeatedly below the canopy as they move down-mountain and out of sight.
New noises and behaviors are happening everywhere these days, and I think it has to do with the young ‘uns. Yesterday, after an AM railroad prowl, I saw ten bouncy Mallard ducklings in the riffles below the bridge, just hatched, shepherded by their mother; today, for the first time, no drakes fly about town. Toward mid-day, from my office overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue, I heard some very odd calls (odder than usual) from the local Fish Crow pair; perhaps I’ll soon see three or four around town.
House Finches are at varying stages in their family sagas. While he fern female seems OK with flying out of her nest of unhatched eggs every time I enter or exit the porch, another family flies in to perch on the wires: a male and female with a large and insistent fledgling, which begs successful from its mother. The pair takes off toward the river trees, leaving the male alone for a bit, but he soon follows. I have seen this trio already once today doing the same ritual.
Not long before 7:30, things get suspiciously quiet, even with over an hour to go until last call. I glance down. Nowadays, both my email and my social media feeds are blowing up with news about the Phillies. Reviewers for eBird have had enough! Merlin continues to consistently provide false positives on Red-eyed Vireo song, so the numbers of reported Philadelphia Vireo have spiked across its range, and Pennsylvania is no slacker. Word comes down: if you want your Philly to be accepted, you better have a visual.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting there running Merlin in the experimental mode. As Chimney Swifts stream overhead, nearly impossible to photograph:
the A.I. turns a few of them into Tennessee Warblers. Then, it pulls an American Kestrel out of thin air, and a few seconds later, misidentifies an American Robin as a Song Sparrow. That’s in a 12-species run, all it can hear, during which time my list climbs to 31, including inaudibles: Common Merganser, Turkey Vultures, and distant corvids.
Speaking of vultures, their evening commute is now exclusively east, at least of the ones I can see. Round about 7:30, they kettle this side of Bald Eagle Mountain and then head over top of it, moving down-ridge a bit and out of sight. I would say they’re sleeping somewhere in the karst wasteland of the giant stone quarry beyond.
At a quarter ‘til eight, something is happening at the biggest sycamore, still the beloved perch of European Starlings and Common Grackles. A ruckus erupts and a dozen or so of both species explode into the air and circle in various directions, then return to the fray. I never see what the bother is, but I would suppose it might be a snake or other nest predator. I have not seen fledglings of either species clearly yet, but I think they’re around as well, causing parents even more consternation.
For once, a Red-winged Blackbird ‘easies’ loud and clear, from somewhere nearby. After several minutes, it lifts off from the creek and heads south. Then a lone Common Merganser speeds out of the Gap, heading over town and rousing me from my smoke-and-laundromat-induced stupor. The Yellow Warbler, which gets louder as the light grows duller, zooms past my face, as if it thinks it’s a hummer; it alights in the nearest sycamore and continues to sing. I realize it’s time to change the nectar feeders, and when that’s done and I’m sitting again, I hear some hummer noise and a thump; I turn around, but I only see a madly swinging feeder.
After eight, the mammatus disperse to darker and darker gray and whatever sunset might have happened is forgotten. By 8:30, the Gray Catbirds and Yellow Warblers turn it up a notch, while the Chimney Swifts turn in early. I do the same.
I’m very pleased with this Least Bittern from back on May 14 at 4:32 AM. The flight call of this rarely seen species resembles that of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, making a positive ID difficult. Here is the hotspot’s first-ever record of the species, from May 30, 2022: one of the few May nights of 2022 that I had the antenna running. It is species number 181 for the Plummer’s Hollow 200; I took a chance and considered it a given for the big year. Inch by inch…