voices in the mist

It's hard to see things in a heavy fog like the one we had this morning but the dense atmosphere carries sound very well. That made it easy to locate three different Redstarts (including a first-year male) that were cutting through the mist with their penetrating songs and a Blackpoll whose weak lisping was at the other end of the warbler sonic spectrum (in between was the familiar Common Yellowthroat's 'witchity-witchy-witch'. Several birds that had been missing for the past few days were not so much resighted as reheard: Eastern Kingbird, House Wren, Cedar Waxwing (even weaker lisping), Red-eyed Vireo, Pine Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, one of the Yellowlegs.

In my account of Saturday's Faunathon, I neglected to mention a few things that made the list including an Eastern Bluebird in the Gabreski Airport precincts and several species at or near the so-called Bicycle Path down the road from Hunters Gardens: House and Barn Swallows, House Wren, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow and Blue-wing Warblers, singing Orchard Orioles and Field Sparrows. I went back to the latter area this morning in the hope of finding Blue Grosbeak (it has nested in the area for a number of years now). We didn't find it Saturday and I didn't find it this morning but I did hear and glimpse a vociferous Canada Warbler and spotted an unlikely, spectral-looking Glossy Ibis silently beating its way overhead through the fog, both species that we missed on Faunathon Day.

Eric Salzman