Thursday’s Balcony
At 20 to six, hazy clear and 55. The American Robins still sing, a few of them, but the spot-breasted fledglings from the #2 nest are nowhere to be seen.
Every day, more honkers. At 6:09 AM, ten Canada Geese head east over Sapsucker Ridge, moving fast. Twenty minutes later, a raucous flock of 49—how many families is that?—crowd through the Gap, going east. Close at hand, a pair of Eastern Phoebes hangs out in the tangles over Bald Eagle Creek, while a female American Redstart sings incessantly nearby.
A Great Blue Heron stabs at the confluence, but comes up with nothing.
In the evening, a storm cloud builds from the cumulus overhead. Updrafts suck in streams of noisy Chimney Swifts from all directions. They form some sort of vortex, whirling about many hundreds of yards up, dotting the white.
Subsongs
Saturday dawn: 59, clear, humid. 5:33 AM, at the garage, I’m greeted by the last couple minutes of a Whip-Poor-Will. Eastern Towhees, the only diurnal August bird that still calls off and on in the night, is already ‘drinking tea.’ Field Sparrows, Eastern Wood-Pewees, and Wood Thrushes are also singing. I trudge up through the thick dew to the sit spot at the neck of First Field.
Indigo Buntings, Northern Cardinals, a Song Sparrow, a Common Yellowthroat. These few are the dawn chorus, but there are some off notes and curious sounds. A Song Sparrow that doesn’t sound quite right. A Field Sparrow that sounds a bit like several other species. These are likely juvenile attempts at songs—subsongs—that add to the mystery of August.
By 6 AM, as the dawn chorus dies down, the warblers start up from the thickets behind the black locusts next to me. An Ovenbird practically lands on me, and takes to running up and down a branch. Other local breeders could be residents, or migrants passing through.
The brief dawn call of a Red-breasted Nuthatch is a good sign. They move through as early as July, but seem to prefer hardwood forests to the spruce grove during fall migration. This is the first one I’ve heard since May.
A Pileated Woodpecker flies over without calling, so close that I can hear its wingbeats. Up in the spruce grove, a murder of American Crows is moving through; I count around 30, more than I’ve seen together up here in quite a while.
Black-and-white as well as Hooded warblers are singing and calling. Worm-eating Warblers, which mostly only call this time of year, also sing a few times, and Ceruleans are singing as well. Now that breeding is over and territories with them, it’s a bit difficult to know why they continue to sing.
Activity high in the trees indicates that the black cherries are beginning to ripen. Some trees still have green fruits, but others are red, and some are already black. Red-eyed Vireos, as well as a few Warbling, Yellow-throated, and Blue-headed vireos, are all over the trees, picking off bugs. I spot a White-breasted Nuthatch with a cherry in its beak, and a bit later, a Downy Woodpecker also snacking on one.
In the locusts, several juvenile Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are flying about. At one point, a Hermit Thrush sings a few bars from a deep thicket. A “Traill’s” Flycatcher—I would presume a molt-migrant Willow, but it could easily be an Alder, perches and sallies back against the thicker tangles. Behind the warbler catalpa next to the powerline, a Magnolia Warbler, the earliest ever, pops out briefly.
After a couple hours and 50 species along a transect of about 100 yards, I head up to the spruce grove. Things aren’t as active there, but I am rewarded by the first diurnal Chestnut-sided Warblers (the nocturnal mike has already picked up their distinctive NFCs in flight).
Neither the Magnolia nor the Chestnut-sided breed in the hotspot, so I think it’s safe to say they are part of the vanguard of the fall migration. I expected to get a few new species (for the fall) this weekend, to ease into the absolute madness of the end of the month, with a plethora of confusing subsongs and plumages.
Tomorrow, I’ll cover this area more thoroughly to see what else turns up.
Have you seen any birds eating spotted lanteren fly nymphs. I have many hundreds in my garden...mostly on cucumber plants. Saw the first adult SLF this week. I am also curious to see if fish will eat them as they fall into the water.