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Magnolias as Beacon Heights



harry Le Grand asked about the possible breeding Magnolias at Beacon
Heights. I went there yesterday and took the short trail up from the
parkway because a local ASU graduate student and very avid birder told me
that there are many Magnolias up there singing away for all they are
worth. Having never seen a Magnolia in this state I haturally made a
bee-line to Beacon Heights. What I saw and heard was exactly nothing. It
was the deadest little corner of the woods I have ever been in. Finally I
did manage to stir up one female Black Throated Blue, several RB
Nuthatches, and one Blue Headed Vireo, and down at the overlook there were
scores of Catbirds, Chestnut Sideds, Downies, and singing Veeries (seen as
well as heard), but of the magnolias there was no sign. I pished, I
peered, I stood on my head, but nothing. BUt it must be said that as I
walked the woods I had a distinct sense that birds were singing grudgingly
if at all. A case in point was the Black Throated Green family I saw at
ROugh Ridge Junction Overlook. The parents were very busily feeding the
three fully-grown babies, and the calls they were making were mostly the
short, frantic, persistent chips that babies make in order to keep in
touch with each other and with the parents. But every once in a while the
parents (I assume) woud give a shortened version of their song, listlessy
and half-heartedly. So, maybe the magnolias were all around me at Beacon
Heights. The guy who told me about them was very knowledgeable (he is
doing a breedign bird survey for a private land-holder up in Little
Switzerland), and he said that they are there every year. 
Shantanu Phukan

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SHANTANU PHUKAN
Lecturer in Urdu-Hindi & Indian Literature
University of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill
Curriculum in Asian Studies
Alumni Hall 413C
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27599

phukan@email.unc.edu
919-962-6825
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