tree tops to pond bottom

A Baltimore Oriole has been singing repeatedly from the canopy of oak and hickory just outside the porch where I am writing this. Somebody (Roger Tory Peterson perhaps) once said that the oriole song is like an introduction to an even more beautiful song that, however, never comes. This effect is due to the fact that the oriole seems to whistle its mellow notes in a very laid-back, almost random manner with none of the rhythmic precision that most birds put into their musical efforts. To our human ears, a 'real' song should have a more formal structure of rhythm and phrase; the oriole song or songs seem almost lackadaisical. On the positive side however, every oriole's singing is individual and oriole music is never stereotyped.

A very different and even less likely kind of 'song' is coming from the other side of the house. A Green Heron, Butorides viresens, is calling from a tree inside the woods back of the marsh and this consists of just one explosive squawk every minute or two. Thrush music this is not but it is, I suspect, the Green Heron's love song
-- i.e., an invitation to a potential Mme Butorides to join him to make love and a nest to raise more Green Herons. These are one of the few herons that breed in isolated pairs (the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron is another) and they have nested in these woods before.

Black-crowned Night-Heron (a colonial nester) is on the pond again at low tide. He flies off at my approach but the resident Willet, intent on his or her toilette, utters a few token protests and, after I sit down (thus lowering my threatening profile), proceeds with the task at hand. After splashing around a bit in the water, he/she proceeds to ruffle, preen and smooth out one feather after another after quickly dipping its bill into the pond in between. It is a laborious process but a necessary one; birds that don't keep their feathers in good shade don't last long. Occasionally the striking black-and-white wings are flashed straight up in the air, perhaps to dry them off a bit; otherwise the wing pattern hardly shows. This bird is so oblivious to my presence that it actually moves towards me as it works over its plumage.

A female-plumaged duck watches all this with interest. She looks like a Black Duck although her tameness suggests a Mallard or a hybrid; in any case, she also has neglected to fly off. Eventually she walks to the edge of the pond, climbs up on a rock and, in a much more casual way, begins her own toilette.

Eric Salzman