out the window and out the front door

Does the Great Crested Flycatcher have a 'morning song'. I know that the Eastern Wood-pewee has such a song -- much more elaborate than its familiar 'pee-a-wee' call -- but one is rarely in the woods at the right hour to hear it! But if the Wood-pewee, why not the Great Crested? I heard a very elaborate and longish song right out my window this morning and it took me a while to figure out that it was a Great Crested singing. The cadence was more musical and quite a bit sweeter than the familiar calls of this bird which are short, weepy, sometimes scratchy and comic-sounding.

Mockingbirds are more likely to sing in the middle of the day as, for example, the N Mockingbird ensconced in the Pitch Pine overlooking the pond later this morning. As usual, it was an index of all the local singing and calling birds, each phrase repeated several times (thus giving away the mockingbird origins). Around here, mockingbird territories are (or have been) on Bay and Weesuck Avenues but we rarely see them on the property (occasionally they appear at the head of the marsh in the fall). So, while this is hardly a rara avis, it was unusual to have it singing away a relatively few steps from the front door.

Even closer to the front door was the hummingbird which appeared out of nowhere, landed on the branch of an oak right over our front deck and then took off again for parts unknown. It was fast action -- much too fast for me to get my binoculars up but I think it was a female -- a late migrant or a local wanderer, I cannot say which.

Eric Salzman