our June morning chorus

Now that the bedroom windows are open at night, I can hear sounds from the outside very clearly. I woke up this morning to the whistles and chirps of an Osprey -- probably one of the new pair that seem to be romancing on our side of the creek. It was shortly followed by the loud repeated rhythms of a Carolina Wren and then the gentler notes of a Tufted Titmouse. Next were the crows (not in song but in some kind of social confabulation) and then the unmistakeable whistles of the Northern Cardinal. No robins, no Blue Jays, no Catbirds -- all birds that I assume are feeding nestlings or fledglings, an activity that keeps them quiet. I actually heard Blue Jays mobbing a crow a bit later in the day -- the first jay sounds in weeks.

The Osprey are forming what I think will be a second pair in the area. The established pair has a nest on Pine Neck and I believe there are young in that nest. The new pair has been active most of the month of May with a third bird -- a second male in competition for the female? -- in attendance much of the time (at one point, there were four or five birds on the creek). I think these are all young birds. If all goes well, I would expect to see these Osprey affairs settled out and perhaps even some new nest construction this summer but probably not any egg-laying by the new pair until next season.

Tufted Titmice are nesting again in a vertical tree-hole formed by the split in the trunk of a small oak. I saw one bird fly straight down into the cavity carrying food. Either he is feeding a female sitting on eggs or, more likely (since there seem to be two birds flying in the neighborhood), there are already hatchlings in the nest.

This has not been a very good year for butterflies. So far I've seen a Tiger Swallowtail or two, a couple of Red Admirals and a large black butterfly over the marsh, probably a Spicebush Swallowtail. There are a few skippers around of the Hobomok/Zabulon variety and duskywings of the Juvenal/Horace type. By the way, how did Duskywings get named for Roman poets? And did Hobomok and Zabulon get their exotic names from Native Americans or from the Bible?

Eric Salzman