Three or four Royal Terns on the creek earlier this morning were the first of the year for me. As usual, I heard their rippling teeth-on-the-comb calls before I saw them. Royals have become regular summer visitors starting in mid to late July but they have started to appear in the spring only very recently. Is this a prelude to their breeding on the South Shore?
Our vociferous Baltimore Oriole was calling on the far side of the creek before recrossing to this side. Still around are a strangely quiet Eastern Wood-pewee (could it be a female), an intermittently calling Great Crested Flycatcher and an insistent Red-eyed Vireo.
Also worth mentioning is the frenzy of activity at the Purple Martin colony. Every gourd seems to be occupied and I suspect there may be some squabbles going on with young birds trying to gain a place in Purple Martin society by taking over a nesting hole (perhaps by ejecting its previous place-holder) and attracting a mate. It's not easy to figure out what's going on amid all the jumble of perhaps a couple of dozens birds constantly in motion but the elaborate chirping and mellow twittering of the entire colony in action makes for a very musical chorus. When they are not attending to their business at the colony, they head out to feed, mostly low over the marsh; sometimes they even land on marsh debris or on tree limbs just beyond but usually take off again in a few moments. As the day warms up, more and more of the birds move higher and higher over the trees and over the creek following their insect prey no doubt. And as the weather warms up and as the domestic squabbles are settled one way or another, these morning congregations seem to break up earlier and the birds disperse more widely before returning with food for their mates left behind to sit on the eggs.
Eric Salzman
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment