sunrise and one clear call for me

I watched the sun come up this morning. Of course this gets easier and easier to do as dawn arrives later and later (official sunrise was 6:30 or so but because of the trees on Pine Neck, it was a few minutes later). The sunlight hits the treetops back of the marsh first and then gradually drops down to ground level, always a beautiful quiet spectacle. With north winds and some cooler air coming in, there were a handful of migrants, notably an Ovenbird, a Yellow Warbler and a couple of Common Yellowthroats. Also Baltimore Oriole, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, a Carolina Nuthatch, a Belted Kingfisher and one of the yellowlegs.

What's a Carolina Nuthatch you ask. Believe it or not, there's a move to split the White-breasted Nuthatches into three geographic species and, if that happens, ours would be the Carolina Nuthatch.

Some of these birds have been around for a while so it's not clear that they are all migrants but I certainly have the impression that many -- if not most -- of our local breeding birds have moved out with a handful of replacements coming in. Gray Catbirds are now the most common bird on the place, feeding on Pokeberries. Poison Ivy berries and Tupelo berries, all of which are fruiting densely in the upper marsh areas. American Robins, which also feed on these berries, are moving around in small flocks along with various woodpeckers.

Late this morning, I heard an Osprey calling outside the porch window -- so close that I thought the bird had landed on one of the trees surrounding the house. But when I went outside, all I could see was a Blue Jay. Then suddenly, the 'osprey' called again and flew into the next tree. To my astonishment, it was a Blue Jay doing a perfect imitation of an Osprey call! All the books will tell you that the Blue Jay is very good at imitating the calls of Red-shouldered Hawks. Well we don't have very many Red-shouldered Hawks out here but we do have Osprey and, let me tell you, the Blue Jay -- this one anyway -- does a really good job of imitating him.

Why? I have no idea. Blue Jays, like other corvids, don't really have a song but they are incredibly vocal, holding lengthy conversations between them. There were half a dozen Blue Jays hidden deep in the canopy of the trees around the house and all calling to one another in a series of sounds that ranged from the familiar 'jay-jay-jay' to an endless series of squeaking gates, electronic beeps, various buzzes and burbles. And -- to what end I am not sure -- a very good Osprey imitation.

Eric Salzman