Hi all,
The past several mornings I've been trying to spade up the rest of our
garden, working out there for about an hour to an hour and a half each
day. It gives a good opportunity to stay in a small area and listen to
whatever birds are around.
During those four or five hours, the YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT on the brushy
slope above our yard has sang just twice. I'm pretty sure he's been
around the whole time, since when he sings, he just all at once pops up
and launches into it, then goes quiet.
On Friday morning he gave exactly one rendition of his song, announcing
it with a sudden, loud, whistled "NYUK" (kind of like one of the Three
Stooges who'd always go, "nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!" but louder), then a couple
more repeated phrases, then quiet for the rest of the time I was out
there.
Yesterday in drizzle he didn't sing at all. Today I saw him fly up in a
very brief display flight, singing as he reached the top, and then on
the way back down. And again, that was the whole show, over in a matter
of seconds. Both times he sang, he was within 30 to 40 meters.
This got me thinking about point counts. If you stood out in my back
yard and did a series of 54 point counts, each of them 5 minutes long,
that would amount to the same time that I was out there listening while
working. You would have detected him only on 2 of those 54 counts, or
3.7% of the time.
Happily there were plenty of other birds to listen to while the Chat was
sulking in his thicket. Today those included BLACK-THROATED GRAY,
HERMIT, and WILSON'S WARBLERS, the ever-present HOUSE WREN, a LAZULI
BUNTING (who sang once, had a female fly in, then they flew off together
calling) and the first CEDAR WAXWINGS that I've heard since mid-January,
flying over.
Happy backyard birding,
Joel
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
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