chirping Osprey and Indian Pipes

What is all the evening and morning loud whistling and chirping all about? Every day at dusk and in the early morning two or three Osprey appear on our side carrying on in the tree tops. Are they young birds from one or the other of the Pine Neck nests sociolising or otherwise looking to begin the process of finding a mate or a possible nest site? Or are they a mixture of adult birds trying to teach their offspring something? Because of the location and relative darkness, they are relatively invisible and I can't even tell if they are young or adult birds. Something serious is going on but I'm not sure what it is!

Yellow-crowned Night Heron adult flying over the marsh and dropping down into the pond. Spotted Sandpiper also in the open area of the marsh; the same bird or another working the edge of the pond. Both sandpipers were spotless indicating that they were young birds, possibly of the year.

Feeding flocks are beginning to form. One today was led by Tufted Titmice and also included B-c Chickadees, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, and at least one Yellow Warbler (also a Common Yellowthroat male but this bird was probably just a resident that only briefly joined the passing flock).

indian Pipes -- also called Ghost Plant -- have started to emerge. Monotropa uniflora is a white plant that grows in the shady understory of the woods, sometimes singly but often in groups. Because of their lack of chlorophyll, many people think of them as a fungus of some sort. They are, in fact, a flowering plant in the heath family but one that lacks that lacks chlorophyll and hence gets its nutrition by being parasitic (on tree roots and/or on some kind of actual fungi on these roots). The flower heads are nodding -- presumably to prevent them from getting doused by the rain -- which makes them look like an old-fashioned Dutchman's pipe or Native American peace pipe; after they are fertilized, they tend to straighten up and turn pinkish. Another monotropa, Pinesap or Monotropa hypopitys, also turns up but is much rarer.

Eric Salzman