At 3:30 in the morning on Saturday, June 17, one last warbler ‘zeep,’ lasting a mere 70 milliseconds and repeated more faintly 13.5 seconds later, is picked up by the nocturnal flight call microphone. I would like to think it was a Blackpoll Warbler that tarried somewhere in the US Southeast after flying from the Greater Antilles, en route from its permanent home somewhere in northern South America—even the Amazon, perhaps. A brief snapshot during an extraordinary voyage, and a fitting end to the northward flow of avifauna—hundreds of millions of individuals—that started over Plummer’s Hollow with waterfowl and vultures way back in early February.
Whether it was a Blackpoll on its way to sub-Arctic Canada, or a more prosaic molt-migrant Louisiana Waterthrush or Yellow Warbler making some unguessed-at movement, is impossible to know, but it seems safe to say that this pretty much marks the end of the Spring migration, days shy of the Summer solstice.
For the purists: a definitive end occurred on the night of Thursday into Friday, when my listening device picked up a handful of Swainson’s Thrushes; it has now been two nights without any of this species.
Farewell to the Second Brood
While a few blackpoll stragglers are just now reaching their breeding grounds, many of our local species are already working on their second broods. And then there are the House Finches. At 8:52 AM on Friday, hearing a commotion out on the porch, which I had avoided at dawn, I look out just in time to see the two nestlings take wing, together with their clamorous parents, toward the Little Juniata River. They land well up in the trees, and that’s the last I see of them. I immediately take their dying, messy fern and hang it out under the balcony stairs, not expecting to see Fern or Fernando around much anymore.
Alas, when I go out for a late-morning tally, there they are, the two of them, on the nearest wire, making their typical nervous calls, apparently aimed at me. On a hunch, I pull down one of the other ferns, which hang along the outside rim of the porch, exposed to the elements, and there inside is a perfectly formed nest. I’ve seen them go into both of the outer fern baskets on numerous occasions, so I check the other one, but there is only an indentation. They’ve clearly picked a spot for Brood # 3.
Friday Evening Chickadees
The black walnuts around the garage are alive with Black-capped Chickadees this evening. At first, I think I am hearing Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, but I realize that all the sounds are coming from at least seven chickadees begging, scolding, and making a range of calls both familiar and unfamiliar, mixed with the usual songs, as they move slowly through the trees, gobbling down insects and other fare.
Laurel Ridge Sit-and-Prowl
Saturday morning is an exploration of the Ordovician line where the Reedsville Shale abuts the more recent Bald Eagle Sandstone. The fossil-filled shale is crumbly and weak, good for growing things like pastures and tangles of barberry, privet, and multiflora rose, and it has largely eroded away to form the extremely steep northeast side of Laurel Ridge. The ridge itself is held up by the stubborn and pasture-loathing Bald Eagle sandstone, friend to oaks, which dips gently west toward Plummer’s Hollow. What this means for vegetation is that the steep Sinking Valley side, in Reedsville shale and just off our property, is covered with a rich forest of tangles and relatively young forest, but the privet army halts its advance near the top of the ridge, and the understory is replaced with huckleberries and mountain laurel, while the canopy changes to a riot of oak species along with black gum and a few other species.
I have sat along the top of this ridge previously, at the powerline right-of-way, but this morning I’m moving close to a mile to the northeast. Walking to the spot around 4:30 AM, I am quickly soaked by the dripping oak shrubs and blueberries, not close to dry after yesterday’s torrents. It’s around 60, and a breeze is just picking up.
A distant Whip-Poor-Will gets ready to wrap up its night, and around 4:44 what might be an Ovenbird makes a sound. Otherwise, the silence is deafening, until a definitive Ovenbird goes off once, to the left of me—not its diurnal call but rather the night song, a bit of its own and a lot of mimicry that I often pick up on the microphone. At one past, another night song sounds from the right.
Not until 5:06 does the first Eastern Wood-Pewee cry; moments later, the first Scarlet Tanager sounds. A few minutes later, both pewees and tanagers are going nonstop; the pewee’s call goes up, then down; up, then down. Red-eyed Vireos join in moments later, and their droning songs, with tanagers and pewees, form the bulk of the chorus for quite awhile.
As the variety of songs build, the Ovenbirds revert to their daytime “teacher, teacher, TEACHER!” song. At any given spot up in these woods, I can usually hear four at once from different directions.
It’s light by 5:20, and by 5:45 the local species all seem to have registered. Nothing unusual here, so I head along the ridge. I need to be back up here to look for Olive-sided Flycatchers in migration: there are large patches of dead oaks, killed, I think I remember being told, by spongy moths and late frosts over the past few years. Some early blueberries make a welcome breakfast.
A pattern emerges as the birds really start to move. They are often agitated and they are frequently in family groups. Yellow-throated, Blue-headed, and Red-eyed Vireos all nest along the ridge, with the latter in overwhelmingly higher numbers, but all are easy to see right now. Male Scarlet Tanagers are drooping their wings and lifting their tails with their mates nearby, but these may be distractions, as I no doubt am dangerously near many fledglings. Ovenbirds and Worm-eating Warblers, both ground nesters, are also quite annoyed with me, as any parents would be. I try not to be too much of a bother.
Toward the end of the ridge, just before it drops down to the railroad tracks, a view opens up toward Ironville and the quarry. A female Hooded Warbler is in the sassafras, holding a grass stem: second nest already? Straining, I identify what I thought I heard: Eastern Meadowlark song! I have long thought it must be possible to detect this exclusively valley field-nesting species from the top of the ridge; I believe this is our first summer record.
Mossy Side
Rather than scramble down the treacherous scree to the pond to get off Laurel Ridge, I turn left and plunge into the mountain laurel thickets, now pretty thin and easy to get through after years of die-off. A Black-throated Blue Warbler gives its gurgling buzz from nearby, the first report of this species in the hotspot during the 2023 breeding season.
After several days of downpours, this particularly forest smells therapeutic. I gulp down deep breaths of essential oils and aromas from the trees and mosses, so different from the gritty, tarry smells of town and tracks.
I intersect a 1980s-era gash in Laurel Ridge just where it starts to drop off steeply to the Hollow, and am besieged by Blue-headed Vireos, with Red-eyeds holding back, higher in the trees. The old logging road cuts jaggedly downward, and it occurs to me to call it ‘Mossbank Trail’ in honor of the plant that grows so thickly on this ridge. I don’t know what other names this overgrown route may have, but it’s better than what I previously called it, honoring the irresponsible logger who needlessly bulldozed out a good bit of Bald Eagle sandstone to make it as quickly as he could up the ridge before he was stopped (we purchased the land not long thereafter; before that time, we only owned a strip along the road and stream in the Hollow, and 140 acres up top).
Nearing the tracks and road, the forest shifts to the lush and diverse hardwoods of the Juniata Sandstone, and I hear the first Acadian Flycatchers, Baltimore Orioles, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks of the day. Paola’s got the car today, so I’ll scout the tracks before returning to town on foot.
A Surprise at the Pond
It’s not warm yet by any means, but the sky is quite hazy, and a fierce wind is blowing. Strange weather for June! Down toward the pond, the Yellow Warbler Swamp appears bereft of its namesake, but over the rushing air, in a brief span between super-long coal trains, I hear the Orchard Oriole singing. As always, American Redstarts are vocalizing everywhere; I guess I should have called it ‘Redstart Swamp.’
I have taken to trekking to the far corner of the pond to peek out toward the valley before returning to the Plummers’ Hollow crossing. Today, I have to wait out a train, and it’s good I do so; as soon as it passes, I hear a Yellow Warbler from another bit of wetland, and then, from somewhere around the east end of the pond, a Green Heron calls. I’m elated that the pond is good for something: hopefully, it’s breeding here. I pick one up most nights flying over the antenna, and recently have seen one fly from the Gap over town.
Near the bridge, right where Plummer’s Hollow Run joins the Little J., around 20 Canada Geese, parents and goslings, have congregated close to the riverbank downstream. They seem to be more obvious with their broods than the Mallards and Common Mergansers, but then, they are able to defend their offspring quite fiercely, so perhaps they can afford to spend a bit more time out in the open than the smaller waterfowl do.
I wrap up today with a respectable 67 species, filling in a few more pieces in the breeding bird puzzle.
Mimics of the Southeast Side
Sunday’s exploration is the southeastern periphery of the hotspot, not far from the highest point on the property I visited a few weeks ago, but much lower in elevation. I plan to skirt the edge of the hotspot around Roseberry Hollow and beyond the Far Field, again, like yesterday, to see if any breeding rarities remain to be found while they are still vocalizing.
Exiting the car at the garage around 4:30 AM, the first bird I hear is a Barred Owl with its classic “Who cooks for you?” As I trudge through the field in the mid-50s air, gulping bitter coffee, the owl reverts to single phrases and then falls silent as I pass by. A Whip-Poor-Will starts up along Laurel Ridge, as usual. Fireflies are out, and a slight breeze kicks up.
My headlamp dies, so by the light of the full cellphone I leave the trail and head off down the ridge just as the first Eastern Wood-Pewee calls—at 4:46, some twenty minutes earlier here than where I sat yesterday. Otherwise, the chorus is similar in its general outline to yesterday’s, though because I’m at the edge of deep woods, Worm-eating Warblers and Ovenbirds aren’t so overwhelming.
The privet jungles here are truly impressive. At one spot, I can hear a Northern Mockingbird as well as several Gray Catbirds, while a pair of agitated Brown Thrashers appears ready to attack me. A low ‘chuck,’ repeated several times, convinces an otherwise unerring Merlin that a Hermit Thrush is about, but I’m not buying it. I’ll admit it’s a possibility, since this is the best place for the species during the winter, but I’m not going to fight with the privet-and-barberry wilderness to find out.
As the sunlight strikes the hazy dawn fields, a Killdeer calls, male and female Purple Martins skim low and loop about, and a couple Eastern Meadowlarks sing.
I make a wide loop and finally reach the Far Field at around 7, three rugged miles under my belt already. Just about every local breeding species, including another Black-throated Blue Warbler, is quite vocal and active, and Brown Thrasher (9), Field Sparrow (34) and Indigo Bunting (49) set new single-list high count records for the hotspot, thanks to a truly amazing abundance of offspring. At least one pair of Golden-crowned Kinglets is still in the spruce grove, and I again hear the Northern Parula singing above First Field.
The Mystery of the Missing Wren
That’s 71 species for the morning, with only a handful of prime locations left on the property that I haven’t visited this June. I am pretty confident that close to 100 species are nesting in the hotspot this year or live quite close by and visit it on a regular basis, as in the case of Fish Crows, Cliff Swallows, and Red-tailed Hawks. Not all of Plummer’s Hollow’s breeding species have been detected in June: Ruffed Grouse and American Woodcocks, as well as Eastern Screech-Owls and Great Horned Owls, are quite cryptic, but they’re here, nevertheless.
Therefore, the utter absence of House Wrens is mystifying. I last detected them on May 27th, and they are not an easy species to miss. Every year but this one, at least three pairs nest in the most accessible parts of the property: one at the Far Field, one in First Field, and one near the tracks. I have searched fruitlessly this year. I have seen local records from elsewhere, so they’re not by any means gone from the area, but I wonder if there has been a population downturn, perhaps from the avian flu or due to some other cause.
We saw a house wren about a month ago on our porch. Since then only carolina wrens that are ever present with their loud and varied calls. I'm watching a rose breasted grosbeak taking a late seed snack as I write this at 8:15pm. Our wood thrush have stopped calling for several days now, we miss them. Wish we could hear a whipporwill ! Have to get up earlier I guess.