Highlights
Pine Siskins increase in numbers (all week)
Turkey Vulture migrant kettle sets high number record (Mon)
Eastern Phoebe returns to the confluence (Wed)
Male Northern Harrier at dawn (Thurs)
Brown-headed Cowbirds singing (Fri)
Log
Mar 5 (Tues). AM: 15 spp. (balcony, 1 hr).
Mar 7 (Thurs). AM: 21 spp. (1-mi. hike, 1 hr).
Mar 8 (Fri). AM: 31 spp. (0.25-mi. hike, 1 hr).
The last early week: Light-triggered Song Sparrows and American Robins are going at it by 5, sometimes 4, sometimes earlier, ethereal songs out of the darkness, echoing off walls and pavements.
On Monday, it’s in the 30s by the time the European Starlings arrive already at 6:30 AM; gray, with the faintest hint of pink in the east. House Finches show up later to check out our dead ferns.
I almost think I hear a phoebe, but it’s probably only a starling. By 6:37, a male Common Grackle is already lording it over the top of the tallest sycamore, as starlings wheel about like swallows. Deferential, they occupy the lower branches, but there’s no hint of competition for the top spot: starlings know their place.
At ten to 7, a deafening early spring chorus from below, as an American Crow with a white patch on its wings flies over high toward breakfast. A bit later, some 100 grackles, with Red-winged Blackbirds and Brown-headed Cowbirds in the mixed, stream out through the Gap.
The Kettle
By the mid-afternoon it’s in the 60s and a few vultures are about. With the wind up, a Red-tailed Hawk, wings tugged, emerges from Plummer’s Hollow to the right, climbing nearly vertically, hundreds of feet, then dropping just as steeply, then climbing again. It completes this seesawing motion four times to cross the Gap, then finally hurtles down out of sight into Bald Eagle Mountain somewhere.
Just after six, walking to the convenience store, we spot a gyrating mass of Turkey Vultures moving over town, going north. It’s that time of day and year, and I estimate some 80 birds are in the flock, evidently looking for a roost. They move off to the west, toward the edge of town, where more vultures are circling—we count 163 in all, a new record.
Rainbirds
Tuesday begins a spate of wild weather that will bring us into next week. Today, it’s 50 at dawn already, and the robins, Song Sparrows, and Northern Cardinals are very loud. Pouring rain commences, but it does little to dent the enthusiasm of the early spring crowd: Mallards, crows, grackles, starlings, robins, House Finches, House Sparrows, singing and calling and flying.
At seven, four Common Mergansers, including one female, practically brush the rooftop of our building.
Wednesday: more rain, and heavy fog. Robins and Song Sparrows are singing today before 4 AM. At 6:38 AM precisely, an Eastern Phoebe drowns out the competition as it announces its definitive return. Not a new species for the year (remember the January encounter at the pond?), but certainly one of the most iconic spring arrivals. The message is: Spring’s here; there ain’t no turning back!
A little after 7, Dave texts from up top to report on a swelling flock of Red-winged Blackbirds in the yard. It’s always these foggy, early March days that bring in the Icterids to the walnuts. I ask him to tape them to see if any Rusties are about, but the resultant noise is drowned out by a strident robin.
Rush Hour - Don’t Look Down
Thursday’s the one day during this short week when there’s time for the pond. Unlike in town at 6 AM, out here only a lone robin can be heard, under the lights at the sewage treatment plant beyond the highway. Another chorus, however, is underway:
The air is absolutely still, a stagnant 44, and with the amphibian chanting still underway, Winter Wrens rev up their cascading counterpoint back and forth across the tracks at 6:16. Then a Mourning Dove: slow note, then two fast, as low as an owl, but less threatening. In the pond, a Mallard couple putters about—the nesters, I guess, because no one else is here.
At 6:27, a Field Sparrow, faintly, trilling from the high field above the pond. A Tufted Titmouse sings from somewhere else, then the fee-bee of a Black-capped Chickadee.
Right at 6:38 AM, it begins.
Before this point, the only flying birds have been a few Mallards. Now, all of a sudden, the light’s just right, and Common Grackles, calling softly, begin their morning flight through the Gap, in small groups, west to east, crossing larger flocks of starlings heading west to Tyrone. Robins flutter by, also eastward, but higher up.
At 6:40, a House Finch sings in flight, Red-winged Blackbirds filter through, American Crows show up, and as they all cross paths in the sky above, a Wild Turkey soars in an ungainly swoop right through them, across from Laurel Ridge to Bald Eagle Mountain. With so much action, I don’t dare look down long enough even to type my notes, afraid of what I’ll miss.
What I don’t miss—today’s reward—is an elegant gray ghost, a male Northern Harrier who appears out of nowhere from over the top of Bald Eagle Mountain, heading south across the Gap and right over my head, into Plummer’s Hollow somewhere. Perhaps it showed up to hunt in the fields, or continued on to Sinking Valley. Not the first one for the hotspot this year, but certainly the first I’ve been able to see.
And then at 6:42 it’s over, as suddenly as it began. The last flyer is a lone Common Merganser male at 6:46. The empty sky is now a patchy blue. Back at the car, in the light, I can see that the river, as it’s been much of 2024, is high, almost raging. I drive back into town just as the Rock Pigeons begin their own rush hour.
Antenna Day
Friday is my only time on top this week, as we’re heading out of town for the weekend. It’s also, at long last, the morning I strap the NFC antenna to the garage roof. Turns out the antenna was fine, but one of the cords was shot so, fingers crossed, the set-up will go on for a fourth year. I’m still slogging through thousands of last September’s birds, though; this year it will just be the highlights, and hopefully we’re not too late for the Long-tailed Ducks and other March waterfowl.
This morning it’s freezing and frosty, and I make a quick circuit of First Field, accompanied by singing, chipping Field Sparrows, with Song Sparrow subsong indicating swelling numbers of migrants along the edge, and who knows how many more Fox Sparrows back in the thicker growth. By 6:13 AM, the Eastern Bluebirds are in full swing, surprisingly loud, warbling from the walnuts and locusts, with one perched prominently on an electric wire. Another early riser is the Red-bellied Woodpecker, far ahead of the other woodpeckers, in the yard, calling, drumming.
Around 6:22, some very strange noises float past from beyond the patches of damp cloud at the north end of the field. Crows have been waking up and calling, but this is something else. Hearing some croaking thrown in, I realize it’s a Common Raven, but making noises I confess I’ve never heard before. There’s a low rattle but also an eerie coo, and after setting the stage, the bird in question glides out into the field and shows off, looping and plunging above the grass, then is gone toward Laurel Ridge, still cooing.
By the half hour, 19 species have already made themselves heard or seen. A squeaky sound I thought came much later in the spring issues from the top of the tall field-edge pine—a Brown-headed Cowbird, announcing his presence. I was under the impression cowbirds stayed in their mixed icterid flocks a bit longer, but I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.
Fluting, whistling, from far off east, getting louder. A V of 60 Tundra Swans almost brushes the top of spruce grove, brilliant white through blue patches and white cloud, fast, going north, vanishing in under two seconds, their ethereal whistles with them.
And then the Pine Siskins. Yesterday, not long before 11 AM, Dave reported some 25 massing in the black walnuts. On their way north again, they are temporarily more common than American Goldfinches. This early, only a few of both species are around yet, but they’re loud and energetic, twittering above the field in various directions.
By seven, I’ve already logged 30 species. It’s time to cut it short, though, to make sure I can get the antenna up in time to be back to work by eight. For around the third time this frenetic morning I forget a crucial piece and have to rush back to town, grab it, come back, fit it on, and them I’m out. Next week, we’ll see what the winds and storms bring us.