Return of the Dawn Chorus
My sit spot this frigid Saturday is the northern corner of First Field. It’s a strategic location to detect towhees calling from the deep tangles above, in the lee of Sapsucker Ridge.
The wind is savage today, making a clearing dawn in the low twenties seem much colder. The good part is that the sounds of the interstate and even the trains are suppressed.
Dove Commute
At 6:21, the unmistakable wing whistle of a Mourning Dove overhead starts the day, coming from the left and disappearing to my right. Getting in position for Mom’s feeder, I would guess. She’ll be out soon for the first fill.
Another unmistakable sound over the wind: the faint whistling of Tundra Swans! PH200 #65 and just about the time we would expect to start hearing them in their movement northward.
At 6:29, a second Mourning Dove rushes by, even closer. I’ve not seen them leave Tyrone recently, and this explains it: the commute is happening before I even get out to the balcony.
The Chorus Begins
Right at 6:30 AM, a Song Sparrow starts up from the goldenrod in the field below. It sings just once, suddenly, into the silence. Three minutes later, it sings again, and continues, joined by several more, along with some ‘tseeps.’ Each song is slightly distinct in pitch and composition. The chorus continues for another nine minutes; this species will form the very core of the first dawn wave all the way into summer. Today, it is joined only by Carolina Wrens: one down by the barn does its cheeseburger at 6:36, and a second behind me, up at the woods edge, begins a minute later. Unlike the Song Sparrows, they don’t let up, and are still singing back and forth an hour later. Also unlike Song Sparrows, they never really stopped singing over the winter.
In a month, the first wave of dawn son up here will swell to include Field Sparrows, Northern Cardinals, Fox Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, American Robins, Eastern Towhees, Eastern Phoebes, and several others. For now, Fox and Phoebe aren’t here yet and the others aren’t singing; the white-throats seem listless and barely call, though I know there are plenty a few meters from me in the thickets.
Eastern Towhee Attains Permanent Resident Status
The last Mourning Dove goes by as the twilight fades.
Today, the second wave commences at 6:44 with the first clear tripled notes of the Tufted Titmouse, a species that is now a dominant singer, and along with the Carolina Wren, the only one that doesn’t let up through the first hours of the morning. A Dark-eyed Junco ticks behind me, and then I hear it: the ‘reep’ of the Eastern Towhee. This detection plugs its last eBird bar-chart gap, and thus it joins the list of species that have been found in every week of the year here.
Later, both towhees are calling; it will probably be difficult to tell if these ones stay, once more males start arriving. It would be intriguing to know if these individuals are truly year-round (and perhaps multi-year) residents of the hotspot, or arrived from somewhere else last Fall.
Fourteen by Seven
The Black-capped Chickadee sings at 6:53, and American Crows are about as well: one is flung across the sky above the field. Not soon after, as the wind dies, a large Icterid flock, looking to be be mostly Common Grackles, swoops low overhead from the west, barely missing the crest of Laurel Ridge, and drops down to Sinking Valley. Right after, the European Starling commute gets under way, with small groups low and fast over the field, skimming the trees, heading toward Tyrone.
Fourteen species by 7 today, with Common Raven and White-breasted Nuthatch a bit later. The sun peeks through the trees at 7:15 AM, and a few minutes later, a Pileated Woodpecker calls from the woods to my left; another flies up across the field in front of me toward the powerline. Two minutes later, the caller joins it, emitting its cackle as it flies, and alights quite near me.
The action dies down quickly after that. Neither the cardinals nor the woodpeckers are making much noise today, and with so much bare ground available, the feeders aren’t much of a draw. One impressive event is a swarm of Dark-eyed Juncos from out of a goldenrod patch in the field. Sixty or more are disturbed by my ‘pishing’ and move over to the woods’ edge to feed. I’m glad to see that the goldenrod provides such excellent cover for their night roost; soon, this winter resident group will be joined by migrants as well. They are already singing.
The Happening at 5:36
It never gets above the 40s. I grab a rather uneventful afternoon sit, and with dinner beckoning, I decide to call it quits around 5:30, wondering where all the robins, Icterids, and geese have gone. This is their cue, apparently: at exactly the same moment, at 5:36, these all appear out of the Gap in different groups; Canada Geese honk northward, robins southwest, and Icterids over my head. I’m not sure how many blackbirds there are, as for once there are too many species and individuals in the air at the same time, going in many directions, for me to keep track of everything.
All this was after about 20 minutes of inactivity, and it ceases as abruptly as it happened. The Carolina Wren, on cue, down-trills before bed. Time for quinoa.