A young Towhee

There was still a bit of cool in an early morning that was sunny, dry and birdy. The surprise appearance was a young Eastern Towhee, heavily striped and with wing bars. The bird jumped up onto a branch at the edge of the woods in the spot that I call the 'migrant trap', just beyond the point where the marsh empties into the pond. That it was hardly more than a fledgling was indicated, not only by the dark brown sparrowy plumage, but also by the prominent 'smile mark' at the base of the bill. Towhees have trouble nesting on our place because of marauding cats; my guess is that this bird hatched out on Pine Neck directly on the other side of the creek and was able to fly well enough to make it across.

I call this spot the 'migrant trap' because it is often full of birds in fall migration being evidently the first vegetated landfall that migrating birds hit as they cross Weesuck Creek in the early morning. It's still a bit early for real migration so all the birds seen were probably locals: Downy Woodpecker, House Wrens, many Song Sparrows (this was a good year for both House Wrens and Song Sparrows), Catbirds, Black-capped Chickadees, American Goldfinch and at least one Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

In the woods on the other side of the house, a cuckoo was calling. This was, of course, not the cuckoo-clock sound (which American cuckoos don't make) but a rather evenly-spaced series of cuckoo quality calls. Alas, I never saw the bird but, although it was not a typical vocalization, I think it was a Yellow-billed in action. For a long time, I thought that all the evenly-spaced cuckoo songs belonged to the Black-billed species but the Yellow-billed also sometimes manages something similar. Alas it never called again and I couldn't spot the bird which was well hidden somewhere in the tree tops.

Eric Salzman