Yesterday morning, my spouse and I participated in crane count at Collins
Marsh. Â Not a morning person by standards, it is always a slog to get up and
out of the house so early - but it is so worth while to do so.
Those 'first songs of spring' are an early reminder of why we bird. Â It is a
time travel trip for me - having read "Silent Spring" in my senior year of high
school, I will never forget the message of that book and how it imprinted on me
the value and beauty of our birds. Â The cacophony of sound in Collins
yesterday as the sun rose confused my usually excellent hearing.... but it
lifted my heart - on the thousands of wing beats as the migrating birds come
back to Wisconsin. Â
Spring is a divine time of year to be alive.
Jody Kuchar, Manitowoc (city)
"Nullius in Verba" ~ Horace
On Apr 17, 2016, at 10:07 AM, Patricia Keuck <prkeuck@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
What a lovely and well written observation Bill. Thank you for sharing it.
On Apr 17, 2016, at 10:03 AM, Bill Volkert <billvolkert11@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
the day and this morning I heard a brown thrasher give a short version of
its song, and then nothing more. It tends to happen nearly every spring,
when I think I hear a distant brief song that reminds me of a species that
I hadn't heard since last year. The song is often given only once and is
commonly just an abbreviated version of the species full spring song.
This gets my attention and prompts me to listen closer to affirm the
species which I believe to have heard for the first time of the season. I
strain to listen for one more call, even to simply hear its voice so that I
can be sure of its recent arrival, but it often doesn't come. If I didn't
positively identify it the first time around, I will have to wait another
day to confirm its arrival.
This seems to happen in particular following a strong warm front. My
thinking is that these favorable winds allow for longer migrations, meaning
that the new arrivals have expended all of these energy to take advantage
of the winds and when they do stop they are busy refueling and have little
time or energy to produce a song.
I usually explain this by saying that the birds are simply tired from
migrating which is why they donât sing much when they first arrive, and in
some ways this it true. It is more likely that they have exhausted
themselves from the long flight and need to replenish themselves, leaving
singing as a low priority. However, by the next day it isn't unusual to
hear them singing loud and repeatedly which then confirms what I thought I
had heard the previous day. While a bit frustrating, I find it interesting
to hear these first songs of spring given so briefly before the birds have
an opportunity to rest and then begin to sing in earnest.
Bill
FdL Co.
--
Bill Volkert
Naturalist
http://www.billvolkert
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