Possible Demise of the Downy Woodpecker
Eighteen with a breeze and blowing snow. Cloudy, but clear enough for some early light. For the second day in a row, I cannot detect a bird before 7 AM. All that’s in the air is the strong smell of neighborly weed, and some possible quacking.
At 7 on the dot, the junkyard raven honks twice, then a few minutes later, perhaps in response to a beeping work vehicle, does its higher-pitch croaking.
February Baseline
The dawn is threadbare today — 16 species, but barely, and very low numbers. Local food sources are mostly exhausted, I’d say. European Starlings are around, but scarce, and no compact flocks rushing from tree to tree. American Robins? I heard one once, faintly. House Sparrows and House Finches are about, but not up in the air much. I wonder if this has to do with the fact that the Cooper’s Hawk has been absent so far in February. Typically, when it’s hunting Bald Eagle Creek (which it seems to prefer more than the Little Juniata), it sends clouds of small birds into the air on its approach, or in its wake.
The ‘TCN’ trio (Tufted Titmouse, Black-capped Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch) + Northern Cardinal and Carolina Wren seem to constitute the most predictable suite of nearby native species in the brush and trees around the confluence, maybe 75 yards up the creek, and 50 yards up and down the river from the confluence. The cardinal sings again today, that spare chew-chew-chew song—more like a glorified call, I guess—but it’s something. It’s worth noting that the TCN will be present but almost undetectable from my balcony once the birds of summer arrive. For now, they’re the main native species that stays active and vocal all day long. (The same applies in the woods u on Brush Mountain.)
Mallards and Common Mergansers are out and about. The former, while wild and not ‘domestic-type,’ seem to prefer the local creek and river in and around town, and also fly from the Gap over Bald Eagle Mountain north, while the wilder mergansers, still all males, come out of the Gap heading straight west (to the Tyrone Reservoirs?) or over the point of Sapsucker Ridge, going southwest, possibly to some feeding spot upstream on the Little J.
At 7:46, an uncommon sight: four Mourning Doves heading east into the rising sun in a tight group, straight through the Gap.
I keep waiting for the Downy Woodpecker to signal dawn’s end, but nothing. In my notes, I type NO DOWO!!! and start to seriously consider the possibility that it will be a no-show today. Possible scenarios: the Cooper’s Hawk or another predator finally snagged it. It froze to death or otherwise died of natural causes. It decided today, of all days, to sleep or feed somewhere else. It simply doesn’t feel like vocalizing. It’s all a bit worrisome.
At 7:55, up starts the Downy Woodpecker. Its long silence this morning will remain a mystery to me, but I’m sure there’s some perfectly reasonable explanation.
8:03: the temperature has dropped to 16 degrees despite the bright sun.