[wisb] Migration in SW Monroe County
- From: Lennie Lichter <lennieandmaria@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wisbird <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 20:44:16 -0700 (PDT)
Hi folks.
Here are some of the interesting things I've seen here at our Wilderness
Retreat lately. Yesterday while I was searching along Fox Trail for warblers,
I spotted a couple of small birds moving excitedly around and saw in the binocs
that a pair of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers were bullying a first year (and FOY)
Broad-winged Hawk, who then had to move from place to place in order to escape
its tormentors. On the way back from that hike I realized that I was hearing a
swish-swish-swish noise approaching from above what is left of our Piney Woods.
It turned out to be 3 Sandhill Cranes, flying with their wingbeats in unison,
whistling westward overhead. Speaking of unison, there have been three times
in the last week that I have heard the unison call of the cranes as they passed
or circled overhead. They have two nesting areas about a mile from here, one
to the west and the other to the northeast. Just after the whistling wings
incident, a small falcon soared
over, unidentified, heading south.
Migration here has been pretty slow this year. There were only a few nights
that we have had winds from the southern quadrant at all and most of the time
there were also storms that either discouraged the birds from heading this way
at all or stopped them before they got here. On the one night that was really
favorable (last Thursday) the birds must have passed right over because there
weren't many to be found here at all on Friday.
Quite a few thrushes have been seen lately though, with the few Veerys and
Gray-cheeks seriously outnumbered by the Swainson's, many of which spent some
time high in the Sumacs on some of those cool days.
The last couple of days have been better though, with 12 species of warblers
found yesterday and 15 today. Up until then I think 5 or 6 was the best I'd
had. And tomorrow sounds like it should be good as well. My records show that
I've consistently found the largest numbers of warbler species here in the
period from May 13th to the 18th.
There were at least two Black-billed Cuckoos near the yard today 'cause I was
watching one while another one gave the usual croaking call behind me, which
prompted the one that I was watching to fly overhead to investigate. Also,
there seems to be more Tufted Titmice singing on territories then in the past
few years.
And finally, highlighting one of the scarier aspects of birding, we have a
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker just south of the yard who has refined his "Too-WEE,
too-WEE, too-WEE, too-WEE" call to where it sounds exactly like part of the
sound track for that shower scene in Psycho...
Lennie Lichter
Monroe County
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