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arrivals, departures, and nestings
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: arrivals, departures, and nestings
- From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
- Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 15:25:07 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
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/