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.

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.