A Snapshot of Autumn

There are so many rapid changes in the fall season that it can be hard to keep up with them all: temperatures decreasing; daylight hours steadily shortening; leaves turning yellow, red, orange, and brown; herbaceous plants dying in the fields; birds, butterflies, and dragonflies migrating; animals of all sorts fattening up; etc.  Taking photographs of nature helps with tracking some of these ecosystem-level changes and cycles.  Many wildflowers, including giant ironweed (Vernonia gigantea), a gorgeous native plant, have gone to seed.  

 

giant ironweed with seeds

 In August, these ironweed plants looked like this:

ironweed in August

However, as you can see in both the top photo and the one below, some of the ironweed is still flowering.  This species blooms through the late summer and into the fall.  Its flowers and leaves provide food for insects, and the seeds attract several species of birds.

September ironweed blossoms

Not all of the wildflowers are past their peak.  The goldenrod (which is probably the tall goldenrod, Solidago altissima), growing among the greenery of the woodland edges, has such vivid yellow flowers that it almost seems to glow.  These autumnal plants will probably continue to bloom for at least another month.

goldenrod

The toll that the long season has taken on some of the insects and spiders can be clearly seen.  A common wood-nymph butterfly, a species typically found around shaded forest edges, looks a little the worse for wear.  The damage to its wings is, in all likelihood, the result of a few narrow escapes from birds.

common wood-nymph

One of the many orb-weaver spiders hanging around in the mid-level vegetation is missing legs: two of them seem to be entirely gone, and about half of a third one has also been amputated.  I don’t know whether this damage is from a bird or from something else, but, despite its disability, the arachnid is apparently still managing to eke out a living.

orb-weaver

Even though I don’t know for certain what caused the spider’s injuries, it’s fun to speculate.  Who knows what the culprit might have been?  While a lot of the birds around here feed on seeds and fruits, many more are either partly or exclusively insectivorous—or, since spiders aren’t insects, maybe the more accurate term would be invertivorous (invertebrate-eating).  Anyway, Red-bellied Woodpeckers certainly could be fierce and daring enough to have done it, from what I’ve observed.  I doubt that I’ll ever forget the afternoon at Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge, over a decade ago, when I saw a Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Northern Cardinal zipping through the woods in hungry pursuit of a Luna moth.  Woodpeckers might not seem like the most agile of birds, but I can attest that this Red-bellied was quite maneuverable!  I never saw what became of the Luna moth, but maybe it managed to evade the predators.  

A much less hurried—for now, at least—Red-bellied Woodpecker clings to a lichen-covered branch.  No need to chase moths or nab giant spiders—there must be plenty of food to discover beneath the tree bark.

Red-bellied Woodpecker on branch

Eastern Bluebirds patrol the grassy areas under the power lines, hunting for insects.  Their large, dark eyes and “open” faces give bluebirds an appearance of inquisitiveness.  That may not be entirely a fanciful notion, though, since bluebirds are great at investigating every inch of their environment for food and nesting places.  Any crack, crevice, or hole of sufficient size in a tree, box, or fencepost might serve as a suitable bluebird nest spot, and all sorts of arthropods and fruits make up the species’ diet.

Eastern Bluebird

A short, squeaky sound that recalls the noise made by sneakers on a gym floor alerts me to the arrival of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak.  Then another one flies in, landing very close to the first.  It’s the peak migration time for this species, and these two individuals seem to be merely stopping over for a brief spell.  They remain in the tops of the trees along the creek run for only a few minutes before flying away.

The first of the grosbeaks lands.

Two grosbeaks -- the earlier bird is on the right.

The lower photo provides an interesting comparison between the two individuals.  The bird at the right is definitely a male, and at least two years old, given that it has bold black-and-white wings, extensive dark feathering on the head, and a very distinct breast patch.  However, I’m not so certain about the bird on the left.  It’s either a female or a hatching-year male.  In the spring and summer, older male Rose-breasted Grosbeaks have entirely black heads and bright rose-pink breast patches.  The McGill Bird Observatory does an excellent job of describing the variation in these birds’ plumages (http://www.migrationresearch.org/mbo/id/rbgr.html#ahymb), and their website is one of the sources I’ve perused in my attempts to figure out the age and sex of birds that I’ve seen.  As I’ve learned over the years, though, ageing and sexing birds isn’t always possible in the field.  Obviously, birds that don’t display sexual dimorphism, such as Northern Mockingbirds, can’t be definitively sexed in the field under most circumstances (including when they are singing, apparently, since both males and females participate in that activity), but there are more sexually dimorphic species than you might think that can nevertheless befuddle observers.

Speaking of mockingbirds, both they and their close relatives, Brown Thrashers, are pretty vocal and active this time of year.  Unlike the mockingbirds, the thrashers aren’t singing right now (in the southeastern part of their range, they typically sing from March to May—and, in case you’re wondering, the females apparently do not sing), but they make their loud chak! calls on a regular basis as they forage in the dense thickets.  

 

Northern Mockingbird

Brown Thrasher

Both of these species, along with bluebirds, woodpeckers, and many others, will remain in this area through the winter.  Certain other birds, such as the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, show up here for only a very short time.  It’s the transitory nature of the season that can make it so simultaneously frustrating and exciting!

Springtimes

 A repost from March 31, 2018.  Hope you enjoy!

A vestige of autumn--a sweetgum ball--hanging on a limb with new spring leaf buds.  Note the spring foliage in the background, as well.

Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, White-eyed Vireos, and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have arrived on their breeding grounds in the area where I live.  That’s to be expected, just as it’s getting closer and closer to the departure times for wintering Cedar Waxwings, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and White-throated Sparrows.  I have seen or heard all of these migratory species, plus permanent residents like Brown Thrashers, Northern Mockingbirds, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, Eastern Phoebes, Red-tailed Hawks, and Canada Geese, on my most recent walks through the neighborhood.  This time of year is a lot of fun for those of us who enjoy birding, because the species palette changes so rapidly from week to week, day to day (or even hour to hour, in some migration hotspots).  

If you’ve been a birder for a while, then data that you collected in previous years can serve as a guide to what birds you might expect to see on any given day in the spring.  That said, there is also an element of unpredictability, which helps to keep things exciting.  After my walk, I started thinking about my early days as a birder: what sorts of observations had I made on this date, several years ago?  I looked through some of my old field notebooks to find out!  

Revisiting these old notes turned out to be more interesting than I anticipated.  Since I started birdwatching in May 2000, the first spring in which I really paid attention to birds was 2001.  As it turns out, I did bird on March 31, 2001.  I was with other Okatibbee Creek Audubon Society birders at Tallahala Wildlife Management Area, in Bienville National Forest.  This was a noteworthy day for me because I not only saw Wild Turkeys during the car trip to Tallahala, but I spotted my first-ever Belted Kingfisher—a male bird (lacking rust-red belly strap of the female) perched on a power line over a pool of water, just north of Meridian.  It’s a common species, yes, but it was a “life bird” for me back then, and I remember how cool it was that I could see the white dot in front of the kingfisher’s eye and the bristly crest on the somewhat comically oversized, slate blue head.

This kingfisher was photographed on December 31, 2015 at Choctaw Lake, MS.  Similar position on the wire, but viewed from the back, unlike my "lifer" Belted Kingfisher.

I wasn’t able to see very much on the actual field trip, unfortunately—I suppose that I had yet to develop the birder’s skill of tracking down tiny, fast-moving songbirds moving through tall trees and tangled branches.  My birding mentor pointed out the thin, high-pitched songs of a few newly-arrived migratory species, including Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Northern Parula, and Black-and-white Warbler, but since I wasn’t very good with birdsong identification, either, I didn’t end up adding those species to my life list until quite a while later.  It was still a pleasant trip, though, in part because the woods were so beautiful with all of the trees either in blossom or just leafing out, and wildflowers filling in the sunny gaps on the forest floor.  On the drive back from Tallahala, I saw a Wood Duck (another lifer, technically, although I had definitely observed this species a number of times before I became a birder), Great Egrets, and Barn Swallows.  Not bad for a beginner, I guess!

March 31 wound up being significant again during the next year, 2002.  By that point, I had studied bird sounds from both the old Thayer birding software and a CD of 50 common species recorded by Lang Elliott, so I was much better at auditory identification of birds.  I was eager to put my new abilities to use, so I got up early in the morning and spent some time waiting for migratory songbirds at the edge of the woods on my family’s property in Collinsville.  Although I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, I had a feeling that the mixed, shrubby woods on our land might be good for Black-and-white Warblers at this time of year.  Sure enough, after five minutes or so, I heard the squeaky wee-see-wee-see-wee-see song of a male Black-and-white.  I spished loudy, and the warbler came closer to investigate.  Another life bird!

It looked just like this Black-and-white Warbler that I photographed in Arkansas on March 25, 2014.  The northwestern Arkansas woods were nowhere near as green at that time as springtime Mississippi woods, though.

Interestingly, I also saw a pair of Wood Ducks flying through the backyard on this day, exactly a year after my “life bird” sighting in 2001.  We didn’t have ponds on the property, but a few of the neighbors did.  Even so, Wood Ducks coming through the yard were definitely not a daily occurrence.

Although I birded even more during 2003 than I had in previous years, I don’t have any field notes from the specific date of March 31, 2003.  March 31, 2004, however, has an entry.  By this time, I was living in Macon, Mississippi, so the progression of spring migrants may have been a day or two behind that of the more southerly Collinsville.  The habitat was different too—much more open and orchard-like.  And, of course, every year brings slightly different weather, which can affect bird migration.  On March 31, 2004, the weather was cool and windy.  I saw the usual resident Brown Thrashers, Northern Mockingbirds, and Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers—very similar to my March 31 list for this year, actually!  

Brown Thrasher -- March 30, 2018

Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets flew overhead during the day, though, and there were also two Yellow-crowned Night-Herons early in the evening.  Night-herons—and Yellow-crowned Night-Herons in particular—usually are not found in northeastern Mississippi throughout the year, but instead arrive there in the spring and depart in the fall.  

Other migrants on this day in 2004 were Cedar Waxwings, in a flock of about 10, and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers—one species about to check out and head northward to nest, the other just arriving to nest in Mississippi.  Going and coming.  As you may remember, those species made my 2018 list, as well.  Is it a surprising coincidence?  Not really.  Both of these birds are typicallly quite common this time of year.  Still, it’s both fascinating and rewarding to see these patterns and connections in birdlife over the years.  If you have older field notes of your own, or access to someone else’s old records, I strongly recommend taking the time to look at them anew.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher April 12, 2014, in Arkansas.  The species is very common in the breeding season.