Midwinter Ramblings

This piece details some Noxubee County, Mississippi observations that I made many years ago.  Enjoy!

As is the case with any human activity, there are days when birdwatching reaps huge “benefits” for participants…you know, those days when something truly out-of-the-ordinary steals your attention and causes an immense adrenaline rush.  What constitutes an out-of-the-ordinary avian encounter is different for every person, but it always involves birds that are beautiful, graceful, especially fascinating, or rare—in other words, unusual.  Memorable occurrences such as an out-of-range species that provides a first record for a state or country, a trip to a wetland where thousands of waterfowl are congregating, stormy weather in spring bringing astonishing numbers of colorful neotropical migrant songbirds to a tiny patch of woods, and of course seeing a life bird all involve a feeling of intense concentration, combined with that welcome surge of adrenaline.

It’s a mild day in January.  For birders, midwinter days—as well as those of midsummer—seldom bring the intense excitement and anticipation that characterize other times of year, but this doesn’t concern me.  As I head out the back door, I notice the slight breeze and the freshness of the air; a cold front that moved in last night after the violent storms has left the temperature hovering at about 50 degrees Fahrenheit—although certainly not cold, it is cool enough for a light jacket, and chillier than it has been for a number of weeks.  The white airbrush streaks of airplane contrails mark an otherwise clear, azure sky—a far cry from the brooding grayness, rolling clouds, and fierce wind, rain and hail of yesterday.  I had originally figured that the conditions yesterday might have caused some birds to be more active today, but as I stand in the back yard, listening and watching, it crosses my mind that this will likely be one of the slower days of birding—in other words, an “ordinary” day.

Some of the first bird sounds to reach my ears are from the “regulars”—chickadees, titmice, and Carolina Wrens calling in the woods some distance away.  I walk across the soggy, gray lawn to the thicket behind the old outbuilding.  This thicket was mostly cleared out several years ago, but since then it has been allowed to grow into an impenetrable mass of tangled vegetation, the haunt of nesting Carolina Wrens, Northern Cardinals, and Brown Thrashers in summer.  Lush and green during that time of year, now the intertwined grasses, saplings, and vines are bare, gray, and brambly.  As I look closer, though, I notice that a few plants still have some green vegetation, and last year’s dry leaves dangle from the branches of some of the sapling oaks. 

A brief, scratchy call note, evoking the sound of a mechanical toy being wound, sounds from the upper branches of a large pecan tree in the thicket.  Oh, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  As I watch, the tiny bird flutters up to pluck small white berries from clusters growing near the pecan tree—poison ivy berries.  I follow these berry-laden branches with my binoculars, and with a sense of fascination mixed with horror, I find that the poison ivy has grown in the form of a large shrub, rather than the vines that I commonly see.  Its thick, hairy trunk leans against the old pecan tree.  Whoa.  I step away from the thicket and look at the sky, hoping to see a hawk or two.  As it turns out, one of the neighborhood Red-tailed Hawks is soaring overhead, the sun shining through the rust-red feathers of its rectrices—an unexpectedly beautiful sight.

Red-tailed Hawk

I walk down the slope of our backyard to the pond, and from there I go to the marshy ditch on the southeast side.  The “marsh” itself is home to willows, cattails, and various types of grasses, while pines and brushy woods grow on the northeast side of the pond.  White-throated Sparrows flush up in bunches in front of me and land in the woodland cover several feet away, exchanging sharp peek! calls.  They are most likely alarmed by the presence of this strange, flightless intruder.  If I’m careful, I can creep into the woods to look at these large sparrows, which are plumaged in subdued, yet striking, gray, brown, white, and yellow feathers.  Sure enough, I spot some of them as they dart in and out of the shrubbery.  A single, dry check note fills me in on the whereabouts of a Yellow-rumped Warbler, perhaps calling to its associates that are also somewhere in the woods, hidden from view.  

White-throated Sparrow

The churr churr call of a Red-bellied Woodpecker sounds faintly off in the forest.  I wonder where it is, exactly; most of the time, I see these woodpeckers close by in the yard, foraging in the old pecan and walnut trees.  Of course, this might not be one of the individuals that I see in our yard, but it easily could be—I’m sure that their territory includes much more than the few acres that comprise our property.  Barely detectable over the sound of the woodpecker are the little chipping calls of Pine Warblers moving through the pine thicket some distance away.  Pine Warblers tend to travel in small groups, and are seldom seen far from pine trees.  These warblers are too far away to locate at the moment, so I turn my attention to other things.  A small creek runs through these woods—barely a creek, actually… it appears more like a shallow ditch, filled with runoff from yesterday’s rain.  Just the fact that there is a depression, though, makes me think that the stream of water must run through here most of the time.  Both sides of the creek are lined with dense privet bushes, laden with clumps of small, bruise-colored berries.  Many naturalists hate privet with a passion; the invasive shrub is spread around in bird droppings, choking out native vegetation wherever it sprouts.  Although I’m not thrilled to see it here, the White-throated Sparrows darting in and out of its luxuriant growth seem to have quite a different opinion.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

It’s been several minutes now since I entered these woods, and I’m considering walking back out of them soon.  But wait—what is that little insect flying near the ground?  Looking closer, I see that it is a blue bottle fly.  It seems a little incongruous for one of these usually warm-weather insects to be out today—the 50-degree temperature surely takes a toll on its fragile metabolism. Not surprisingly, the fly buzzes around feebly before settling down on a dried stalk of grass.  A band of Blue Jays suddenly flies in, one of them giving a near-perfect imitation of a Red-tailed Hawk’s scream.   Then, just as abruptly as they arrived, the jays disperse into the woods.

Blue Jay

The White-throated Sparrows are starting to return to the territories from which I initially disturbed them.  They are settling in for the evening.  The sun will set soon, and it seems like a good time to turn in, so I head back to the house.  On the way, I stop to admire the faint pastel colors just beginning to appear in the sky.  It’s a nice ending to this midwinter day in the field, and a reminder that not all exciting birding experiences must be intense.  In fact, I wonder if an unending stream of amazing, adrenaline-pumping experiences would just tend to blend together, as the “ordinary” days do.  On the other hand, as self-proclaimed naturalists, finding something to enjoy in every outing should be one of our biggest priorities—and it’s rarely a difficult task to discover something worth watching in nature’s fascinating show.

There's Something in the Air

Autumn is only now truly settling in, but the birds have been on the move for months.  In the previous post, I talked about some of the migrating species I’d seen, and now I’m overdue to discuss even more of them!  Frustratingly, not all of these birds are easy to see.  Some of them—particularly the warblers—are notoriously uncooperative.  The photos I manage to snap of these feathered sprites have an unfortunate tendency to recall Where’s Waldo? illustrations.

Where’s the warbler?

In the case of this picture of an adult male American Redstart, you have to look far over to the right to see the bird, displaying his gorgeous orange-on-black plumage.

Immature male redstart

This photo of an immature male redstart (with yellow-and-gray feathers) is identifiable, but not much else.  These tiny birds repeatedly thwarted my attempts to capture them on camera!  Although redstarts are breeding birds in a few locations in my area, they are much more common in the fall, when they can be expected to be seen in almost any wooded habitat from about September through mid-October.

Tennessee Warbler -- with food!

Tennessee Warbler -- note the facial markings.

Tennessee Warblers are also quite abundant fall migrants.  Their foraging behavior of methodically probing clusters of leaves for insects makes them a little easier to photograph than restarts, which flit around in thickets, catching a lot of their food on the wing.  “Tennessee Warbler” is really a misnomer, since this species nests nowhere near Tennessee; Alexander Wilson, an early ornithologist, just happened to discover it in that state during migration, so the name stuck.  Tennessee Warblers are pretty drab, but they always show pale “eyebrow” markings and white undertail coverts.

Tennessee Warbler -- note the yellow breast and the white undertail coverts.

One of the warblers that arrives in this part of the world in October and stays through the winter, instead of continuing farther south, is the Yellow-rumped Warbler.  These tough little guys increase their consumption of berries—including those of wax myrtle and poison ivy—during the colder months, when insect prey are harder to find. 

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler.  The yellow patches on the birds' sides are noticeable even when the yellow rump patches are hidden from view.

Of course, warblers are far from the only birds migrating right now.  Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers (the name that sounds almost too silly to be true) have arrived for the winter, joining the permanent-resident woodpeckers, such as the extremely common Red-bellied and Downy Woodpeckers.  Sapsuckers have bold white wing stripes and a mewling call, which make them fairly easy to identify.  

This Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is a juvenile, which is why it has brownish markings on its head instead of bolder black, white, and red ones.

For the sake of comparison, here’s a Red-bellied Woodpecker (another name that can cause some confusion, since the red on the crown and nape is far more prominent than the few reddish feathers on the belly):

Red-bellied Woodpecker clinging.

And preening.  The red forehead indicates that this bird is a male.

And here’s a Downy Woodpecker, with its spotted wings and white back:

Downy Woodpecker

The red spot on this Downy's head marks it as a male.

Another overwintering migrant is the Red-breasted Nuthatch, a tiny bird that moves south in larger numbers during years in which conifer seed production is low.  This is referred to as irruptive behavior, and is exhibited by many other species, including Purple Finch, Evening Grosbeak, and Pine Siskin.  I was lucky with the bird below; it had apparently just recently arrived, and seemed somewhat disoriented—darting under the roof of the patio and landing on the rocks beside the goldfish pond.  I haven’t seen it since, though, and I wonder if it continued farther south.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Finally, what about that quintessential image of fall migration: a flock of geese?  The ones in this photo are Greater White-fronted Geese instead of the more familiar Canadas, but, because large numbers of them have been flying through northeast Mississippi since the last week or so of this month, their piping calls piercing the somewhat colder, mid-autumn air, I think they exemplify the mood of the season.

Greater White-fronted Geese at Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee NWR.

This is just a small sampling of the avian life moving through the Southeast.  Every day seems to bring something new and interesting!  There's a lot in the air...