Song Sparrow Harmonics
Today, I’m at the powerline sit spot well before the first wave. To catch you up: astronomical twilight now starts at 5:39, nautical twilight at 6:11, and civil twilight, AKA “first light,” is at 6:43. Sunrise is around 7:10 AM. The moon is in the third quarter and shrinking toward new, nine days to go.
Here and now it’s 6:30 AM and windy, with puffy clouds, and the temperature is right at freezing. The ground up here is brown while down in Sinking Valley, it looks green. No snow anywhere.
A suddenly loud Northern Cardinal from the steep tangles nearby starts it off right at 6:39. Chew-ah, chew-ah, chew-ah, some six times in all. Out of nowhere, preceded and followed by silence.
Coyotes are on the wind, yowling and crying. Dogs and roosters kick up a racket in response. I think of the increasingly nervous valley dwellers posting their every coyote sighting, scared, anxious. The coyote hunts are increasing: I wonder if they know about what happened out West when war was declared. The coyotes, ever wily, went forth and multiplied. My daughter sees them now in the streets of L.A. A fleeting thought: maybe if we reintroduced timber wolves? (Calm down; I’m joking!)
Another cardinal calls, distant, at 6:42, narrowly beating out the croaking pair of Common Ravens I expect will soon dive down over the powerline. They do, just like two weeks ago when I last sat here. Apparently they roosted for the night in the spruce grove, a brief flight away.
First Wave
At 6:43, an American Tree Sparrow and several Song Sparrows emit their ‘tseep’ calls from the nearby scrub oaks, and the Songs clank a few times as well. The nearby cardinal does two musical calls, one up, one down, different cadences.
The Song Sparrow ‘tseep’ is quite unusual: take a look at the harmonics on the spectrogram.
The only 10+ kHz signatures I tend to pick up on the nocturnal flight call microphone are of bats; I would guess that the reason my phone detects these is because the bird is less than three yards away.
The Song Sparrows are off, and a Dark-eyed Junco calls. It’s light enough that I can vaguely see it flying downhill toward the valley. I’m not sure where the sparrows went, whether toward Mom’s feeders or to the valley as well. No White-throated Sparrows sleep here anymore, though.
Interlude
The scrub oak thicket has emptied out, and a distant American Crow is the only other species before 7. The wind kicks up just prior to sunrise, and, like yesterday, the undersides of the cloud are briefly ribbed with scarlet. The wind breaks up the cawing of crows so I can hear only snatches, and the first European Starlings, battered, exclaiming, nearly slam into the tree tops. A single American Robin emerges from the mountain behind me and is dashed down into the valley somewhere.
Second Wave
At 7:08, Black-capped Chickadees call: ‘dee-dee’ and ‘fee-bee’. The guineafowl are getting louder, however, but I think they’re still inside, so I can mostly hear the wild avifauna as well. Carolina Wren, Tufted Titmouse, and Eastern Bluebird, all from below me, then five American Robins go over. The titmouse does a five-part whistle, piercingly clear and loud, again and again.
By 7:12, the second wave is over. All small birds are quiet again, and even the crows and ravens have moved off.
Last Wave
A Downy Woodpecker drums at 7:20, something I’ve not heard it do in Tyrone yet. A Pileated Woodpecker drums a few minutes later, and a Wild Turkey gobbles from the valley.
The last new species of this dawn is a pair of Common Merganser drakes. They are heading south down the valley but just beyond the powerlines they bank west and go right over my head, crossing to the Tipton side of the mountain, perhaps somewhere to feed on the Little Juniata.
As I head up Laurel Ridge trail beyond the powerline, I can hear numerous cardinals and White-breasted Nuthatches from the First Field edges. The woods sound completely empty, however.
The Far Field is even more barren than last week: that seemingly invincible White-throated Sparrow crowd that didn’t show last weekend is still absent, and no other bird can be coaxed out. Only the resident Hairy Woodpecker, which resides in the highest and southernmost part of our property on Sapsucker Ridge, seems excited to see me.
Uptick
It is a brilliantly blue and sunny morning when I skirt the west edge of First Field, where all the action is. Cardinals, chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches are calling vociferously, and a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers is drumming, down-trilling, and raising alarm calls. This seems to be part of an early courtship ritual.
White-throated Sparrows are quite cryptic and skittish in the thickest barberries, fleeing from bush to bush ahead of me. Juncos, however, are not shy at all: they’re up in the trees all about, displaying, trilling. Juncos will be arriving in large numbers in another month, but every single last one will leave by April. They nest locally, but only at much higher elevations.
American Tree Sparrows are also singing. They mix in with the juncos, but when they’re done here, they’ll head at least as far as southern Canada to breed, and possibly up to northernmost Quebec and Nunavut.
The Eastern Towhees are still around, and for the first time this winter, I hear them doing their upward buzz call.
Overall, I am detecting a definite increase in Carolina Wren and Northern Cardinal melodious calls (as compared to ‘ticks’ and ‘tuts’), and on the part of the wren, songs, from a week ago.
Sit the Afternoon Away
Somehow, a brief look outside at around 3:40 PM turned into an amazingly productive two-hour balcony sit, logging 23 species. I was attempting to read and not taking notes, so I’ll just list the highlights:
A large mixed flock of Common Grackles, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Brown-headed Cowbirds heading back through town at 4:37 PM. Unfortunately, they always go by about a half-mile to the north. Once the flocks become more common and go right over head, I should be able to snag a Rusty Blackbird mixed in with them. I wish they’d have the decent to perch in the nearby trees, like the starlings do.
90 American Robins returning from the east and passing over town high up. This is the most I’ve seen all year.
The last singing bird, a Carolina Wren, goes up until 5:30 PM.
Silent groups of Canada Geese between 5:30 and 5:45, heading east.
Overall, my impression is of heightened activity, with many of the common species starting to sing (particularly House Finches), and more regular occurrences of the scarcer ones. Even one hour sits are not producing less than 15 species, whereas in January, it was common to log 10 or less.