American Robins have long been conversing by the start of today’s sit, at 4:54 AM. It’s a lucid 49 with the crescent moon in Pisces hanging over Bald Eagle Mountain, Jupiter to the north and rising, Saturn to the south and fading. After the rains, a welcome squishy tire sound from the early traffic, and the clearest air in weeks.
Gray Catbird, Song Sparrow, blackbird-by-catbird before five. A robin flies into the porch roof and sings loudly, a few feet away; the Yellow Warbler starts up right at the hour and then the Eastern Phoebe, who hasn’t missed a beat since March.
By 5:22, Jupiter is gone, clouds are creeping in, and the robins are quieting. Three trains already, and the first Common Grackles. Slanting down from the north, one Ruby-throated Hummingbird, then another, for the first feed. A faint, possible sound of Canada Geese.
The grackles keep coming. Today, the largest group yet shows up, a flock of 21 from the north, down into the outskirts of Grackleville. An adult Bald Eagle barely clears the gallery forest; European Starlings waddle about the parking lot below, searching for food.
An unusual sight at 5:51: a Green Heron, flapping west out of the Gap, high up.
A House Finch first sang at 5:17, and now two, whom I take to be Fern and Fernando, are hanging about the wires, acting anxious. Another is begging. Meanwhile, parent grackle feeds a young one, head in throat as always. A juvenile Bald Eagle coasts low over the balcony, heading downstream, while a Fish Crow circles the parking lot.
The Feeding
I am in the doorway downstairs. While Fernando hangs out and sings above me, on wire nearest the porch, Fern hops about and forages in the gravel in front me, stuffing seeds until her cheeks bulge a bit. After two or three minutes of this, she flies up to a wire, and into the nest. Two House Finch nestlings are left, and at 6:19, they get their first meal of the day; they’re not at all quiet about it. Fernando, if not actually feeding his progeny, is in and out of the ferns and goes briefly into the nest.
Before heading back upstairs, I spot a White-breasted Nuthatch on the wing, disappearing into a silver maple by the river.
Attacked, Attackers
After 4, the local pair of Baltimore Orioles goes after an American Crow and chases it up over Bald Eagle Creek, out of sight, as another crow hovers about nearby. The words exchanged seem to be in anger and fear. Then, minutes later, seven American Crows—perhaps including the harried ones—are diving at a Red-tailed Hawk over the river, toward the Gap. They are relentless, calling loudly; the hawk manages to escape and the whole scene disappears behind the trees.
Not more than five minutes after this episode, an adult Bald Eagle appears from somewhere downriver, carrying a fish, circling for quite a while and then heading out through the Gap. Three Red-tailed Hawks—I would guess the family from the towers—appear and fly up to Sapsucker Ridge and out of sight.
Paola returns with the car and I run up to the garage to reset the antenna after a 15-hour blackout. Two Canada Geese with five goslings are swimming around the rocks upstream of the Plummer’s Hollow Bridge. I park outside the toolshed, where Eastern Phoebes are sprucing up a nest, so new that some of the plants they have incorporated still have green leaves.
Song Sparrows, Field Sparrows, Common Yellowthroats, and Indigo Buntings are all about the wires, walnut trees, and fields, trying to keep track of offspring, while perhaps already on second broods.
Mama Eastern Bluebird hangs back with a green edible in her beak as I check the nest box by the garage: looks like two nestlings.
Unsettled
After our out-and-back to Philly for paperwork on Wednesday, I relax on the balcony before and after dinner. A balcony season-first Eastern Wood-Pewee, singing faintly at 5:40, is one of the highlights. As time goes on it moves closer until it’s finally at the confluence. By seven, the pewee is singing as loud as it can, as if it belongs here in town. I wonder what has brought it down from the mountain—maybe it’s looking for an extra or new mate.
We drove through thunderstorms and hail today, and by the looks of it, there have been rain and wind here as well, though by the evening, things have calmed down and the sky is clearing. Reports of Black Terns on a lake not that far away: rare visitors pushed about by the unsettled conditions. Here, we should be so lucky, but as a consolation prize, a Belted Kingfisher rockets over, up from the river and skimming the rooftops, headed who knows where. A Great Blue Heron, which early had flown in from the north, now looms overhead, only 10 or 15 yards up. It’s left off fishing below the confluence and seems to be heading upstream. It looks ragged, what I assume is a molt.
House Sparrows are acting unsettlingly familiar these days, and often take to perching on nearby wires and roofs and scrutinizing me, as if waiting for something. I certainly hope they aren’t thinking about nesting in the ferns.
A Gray Catbird chases another up from the bushes above the confluence where it nests. What I assume is an interloper is pushed into the sycamores and upriver, out of sight, by the angry local. Two juvenile robins, prominently spotted, hop about next to each other over by the wheeled contraption. Kin?
Most of the local species do their final tunes this evening, but one is missing. For the first time in many weeks, the Yellow Warbler is utterly silent and invisible. Here yesterday, gone today.
Spongy
Here’s a spongy moth caterpillar, an invasive species that brings us cuckoos and flycatchers. It’s the forest killer Lymantria dispar, the “gypsy moth” from more offensive times, one of the great plagues whose frass can sound like summer rain, when moth populations are at their height.
When my sons received their air rifles at age 10, I gave them strict instructions to shoot all english sparrows and starlings that showed up on our Sinking Valley property. I fiqured that was a more likely to be followed rule, than telling them what not to shoot. (I was tempted to include brown headed cowbirds given their disgusting habits, but I was afraid the boys would include any bird that was black on their target list). Decades later we still rarely see either of these invaders !