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arrivals, departures, and nestings



Hi Carolinabirders,

Once again, the Triangle Bird Checklist 
<http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/chbc/trichk2000.pdf> hits the nail on the 
head! This week is the time when the abundance of Gray Catbird increases 
from "uncommon" to "fairly common". And sure enough, suddenly 
Carolinabirds is full of reports, many from this neighborhood, of Gray 
Catbirds appearing. I saw one myself yesterday: it was singing a song 
devoid of the usual catlike "mew" and almost had me thinking it was a 
Robin, until I checked visually.

Then, this morning, my housemate Norm Douglas - who moved here from New 
Mexico last fall and had never seen a Catbird before - reported that one 
was out in the backyard, pecking at the orange halves! That's the first 
bird species to show any interest in them, unless you count a Gnatcatcher 
that hawked a couple of fruit flies off of them. Now where are those 
orioles that are supposed to be eating oranges?

While discussing the mimids, the other two local species are both nesting 
within a stone's throw of the Duke Bio Sci buildling. A Mockingbird was 
carrying food into a holly up near the chapel this afternoon, and 
yesterday a Brown Thrasher made several trips with earthworms to a spot 
on the east side of the greenhouses. The foliage was too dense to spot 
the nest itself though. And I actually found some kind of a near- 
fledgling the other evening, perched in a tree by Bio Sci! It was still 
tailless and begging for food, so not quite fledged yet, but it was 
nowhere near any visible nest. My best guess at an ID was American Robin; 
could they have chicks with any limited flight capability yet?

The "winter" birds are not quite due to disappear yet. According to the 
Checklist, Yellow-rumps (by now migrants from Florida and the Caribbean, 
not our winter residents) should be common through the first week of May. 
Observations in the Triangle in the last week of May or later would be 
noteworthy. The last few kinglets and Purple Finches should similarly 
straggle through in mid-May. White-throated Sparrows should linger 
through the end of May. Juncos and Brown Creepers are already in the 
"rare" category, and should be totally gone in about two more weeks. 
We'll have to keep our eyes peeled and see if these predictions stay on 
target...

A friend birded Few's Ford a couple of days ago, near where I reported an 
unidentified male tanager, and heard the unmistakable "chip-burrr". So 
there's at least one Scarlet up there. I heard what sounded like a 
singing Black-and-white Warbler near my house this morning, but no visual 
confirmation yet.

Good birding,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/