Titmice abounding

The local Tufted Titmice (Titmouses?) came out of hiding today and could be heard all morning, starting before dawn when they joined the pre-dawn chorus of Purple Martins and House Wrens and continuing up until the rans came in the afternoon. According to the traditional bird guides, the Titmouse say "Pee-ter, pee-ter, pee-ter" but our titmice make a wide variety of sounds and rarely anything like "Pee-ter". In fact, if you hear an odd woodland sound and can't identify it, it likely comes from a Tufted Titmouse.

Where were these cute little birds hiding until now? I believe that they were attending to a nest full of eggs somewhere in a tree knot or old woodpecker hole. When birds are nest sitting, the parents tend to be quiet and sneak in and out of the nest in order to keep potential predators from finding its location. After the young are born, the adults are both free to look for food and, as the hatchlings grow, the searching and feeding activity gets more active and more frantic (the clutch can be over half a dozen so their work is cut out for them). If this scenario is accurate, the young will be out and flying with the adults in a little over two weeks.

A male Baltimore Oriole was broadcasting his orioley notes from the top of Sandy-killed Pitch Pines this morning. These were mostly two note phrases with an occasional longer melodic bit -- as if he were warming up to his full song (which, as is well known, never comes). This is probably not the oriole with a more elaborate repertoire of phrases heard earlier this spring but another bird looking for oriole love. Have not seen any females around at all (perhaps they are -- I hope -- on a nest somewhere in the vicinity).

Both Yellow Warbler and Yellowthroat singing this morning. Unlike the pre-dawners, both of these birds seem to get up and around rather late after sunrise, perhaps when the sun catches the vegetation and dries the morning dew.    

Eric Salzman