between the drops

Between the thunderstorms, there was a sunrise this morning and as I headed down to the water there was a rainbow above the marsh. Where there's a rainbow there must be sun but there also must be rain and, as it turned out, there was a lot more rain headed our way. But there was avian activity between the storms and because almost all of it was right at the 'front line' -- the row of trees and shrubs facing east -- it suggested a modest migratory movement. When the migrants arrive in the fall, the 'front line' is usually where they drop in and there were numbers of Common Yellowthroats, Yellow Warblers and Northern Waterthrushes plus at least three Empid flycatchers, and at least two Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. The Empids were grayish-olive with narrow but distinct eye-rings and, based on structure; I would say that they were all Alders (Least are smaller and dumpier in their big-headed look and generally have a more prominent eye-ring; Willow, the local breeder, is browner and shows little or no eyering). Two of these Empids had white wingbars; one, presumably a young bird, had buffy wingbars but I think they were all the same species. In with these migrants were local birds: Downy Woodpeckers, Song Sparrows, quite a few Red-winged Blackbirds and both House and Carolina Wrens. Song Sparrows are still singing; nearly everyone else -- even the Carolina Wrens -- have shut up.

Along with the migrants bouncing around in the shrubs, bushes and low tree limbs, there was a swarm of swallows and martins over the marsh. The martins may have been an assemblage of Purple Martins from the area but the swallows -- Barn and Tree as far as I could see -- were almost certainly migrants.

The terns flying up the creek these days are mostly Royal and Forster's these days. I haven't seen or heard a Common here in a while and only a single Least Tern. Least Terns are still feeding young on Dune Road but the Commons (which seem to have had a poor season) have left all their breeding sites.

There are juvenile Goldfinches with buffy wingbars around. Jean Held points out that the best-known mneumonic of the Goldfinch call is "per-chicory" (not, as I had it, "potato chip"). That's true but I doubt that, as she says, 'chicory' is a favorite food of these birds. The classic Goldfinch feed is thistle (and, of course, the niger seeds, widely used in feeders and, in a marketing ploy, dubbed 'thistle seed' by the producers to imply that they attract goldfinches). Around here Goldfinches feed on Marsh Elder or High Tide Bush which, like thistle, is a late season plant.

Eric Salzman