king tides

It seems that we are undergoing a so-called 'king tide', an especially high tide due to the twice-a-year line-up of the earth, moon and sun. The entire marsh gets flooded with water covering most of the path around the edge and the pond brimming full to the top. The birds prefer the low tide in the pond when the mud and sand flats are exposed and bait fish are trapped in shallow pools. These days, if I go down to the pond at low tide, I will almost invariably find two or three of the following: Mallards, Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Belted Kingfisher and, often, Greater Yellowlegs. Almost everything will flush except, oddly enough, the Great Egret and the Yellowlegs, both of which permit quite a close encounter. You'd think that the Mallards, which are introduced birds in these parts, would be as tame as the Mute Swans but they are not. As a side note, the Mallards are all paired up (they do not stay paired through breeding season so apparently the fall is their courtship time; gives 'em an early start in the spring).

Yesterday morning's calls from the marsh included one definite Clapper Rail and a descending call that might have been a Yellow Rail! Sora has a descending call but it sounds more like a whinny (somewhere between a horse and a Screech Owl). Virginia Rail is the famous 'kicker' (which baffled the birders and ornithologists for a long time) but it might have other calls. As I have noted before, rail calls are tough calls.

There was a bit of passerine movement including small overhead flights that I could not identify. What I was able to make out was a flock of close to two dozen Cedar Waxwings, all juveniles! Also a single lost Golden-crowned Kinglet (aren't they supposed to be in flocks?) and an Eastern Phoebe wagging its tail and hunting insects from one perch to the next.

Eric Salzman