Silent Summer

It's eerie how a yard usually filled with bird song can seem so silent, so empty. It's almost as if something is wrong. Of course, something did go wrong, as far as my backyard birds were concerned: my family went on a week's vacation.

That's one week without the bird feeders being refilled. One week without fresh nectar for the hummingbirds and the orioles. One week without fresh grape jelly or bark butter. One week of a bone-dry bird bath, its Water Wiggler spinning mindlessly despite the lack of liquid.

At least the blackbird bunch is gone.

But other birds are also notably absent. Upon checking the little wren's nest box yesterday, I found a flattened nest, heavily decorated with bird droppings: the sign of a successful fledgling. All five baby wrens are out now, somewhere in the woods being taught how to hunt for insects by their mom. While I'm happy that the wrens successfully left the nest, I'm sad that I missed their fledging... by just a few days, if my records are correct.

The orioles also seem to have moved on. This is prime migration time for them, as they head down from the harvested orchards up north to the more fruitful states of the south. It doesn't help that someone -- a blackbird or a jay, perhaps? -- knocked the oriole feeder off its hanger. I'll be fixing that, but it might be too late.

Two of the hummingbird feeders also tumbled off their hooks. Since it is close to fledging time for the hummer girls and their nestlings, I'm hopeful that these jewel-colored birds will at least return once I clean and restock their feeders.

As for my bluebirds, they had already fledged and were just starting to come to the feeder when we left. The feeder is still on its shepherd's crook, empty. I wonder if any of the bluebirds will return once I refill it. I'm hoping to catch them at least once more, if not persuade them to roost over during the cold season.

There was one sign that all had not left yet. When the rained cleared up yesterday afternoon, a quintet of barn swallows appeared on the front yard, whirling and swooping away in their usual acrobatic antics. Barn swallows never fail to put a smile on my face, and I'm taking it as a positive omen that these birds are still around. If these insect eaters are still here, perhaps the wrens and bluebirds are as well. As for my seed and nectar eaters, I guess I'll know soon enough.

Mischief Makers

The little wren nesting in one of my bluebird trail boxes was in a tizzy. Chittering loudly, she fluttered above her nest box, trying her best to scare away an intruder. I quickly stepped out to look. Was it a raccoon? A bull snake? A cat? Something that had somehow learned that, within that box, five baby wrens were curled up against each other, asleep?

My approach instantly frightened away the invader, although not the finches and other songbirds who've grown accustomed to me over the months. No hungry mammal or reptile had the little wren spooked. No, it was something more menacing, at least in my eyes. It was a red-winged blackbird.

Summer is drawing to a close, but the red-winged blackbirds and their cohorts -- the grackles and crows -- seem to be stepping up the mischief making rather than toning things down in preparation for their southbound journey. Over the weeks, I'd watched their numbers increase, rather than decrease. One morning, instead of a dozen or two blackbirds pecking at the insects in our lawn, I counted 133 of them.

For at least that reason, summer's end cannot come fast enough.

There have been three occasions in which I've strolled along my bluebird trail and caught sight of a bird peeking into the entrance. The first two times, I lifted up my binoculars in hopes of sighting a bluebird looking for a nesting place for a third summer brood. Each time, it turned out to be a silly blackbird or grackle, trying to get inside the nest box, regardless of the fact that there was no way it would fit through the entrance. The third time, I didn't bother to look. I knew it was a blackbird.

Blackbirds -- specifically, the female red-winged blackbirds -- continue to get trapped inside our repeating sparrow trap. I stopped baiting it about three weeks ago, and still those nosy blackbirds get trapped inside. I'm starting to think that the grackles are daring the blackbirds to go check out that wire-and-wood contraption, then secretly laughing behind their wings.

Blackbirds -- this time, specifically the male blackbirds -- are responsible for gobbling up the bark butter I've started setting out for the titmice and chickadees. Just this morning, I watched a little chickadee hop its way along our deck rail onto the bark butter feeder, just to discover that most of that tasty bird mixture had been devoured just after dawn by the blackbirds.

Blackbirds -- and grackles, too -- have been emptying my sunflower seed and peanut feeders faster than I can fill them. I discontinued the ground feeder because of them. I'm loathe to take away any of the hanging feeders, not when that might mean not seeing the songbirds and little migratory birds just arriving in this area on their way south.

"Why don't we just trap or shoot them?" J asks, seeing my annoyed expression as yet another blackbird lands on the thistle feeder, scaring away the dozen goldfinches that had gathered there to feast.

"We can't... they're protected birds," I reply, rapping on the kitchen window to scare away the blackbird and noting that this method of shooing them away is becoming less and less effective.

"Who's going to know? I won't tell anyone!" J says.

While it's tempting -- our acreage freed from these pesky menaces -- I know that it's not the correct, or legal approach. I've tried all the recommended ways of dissuading blackbirds, short of taking down my feeders. Just a few more weeks, I tell myself, and then they'll be someone else's problem, someone further south.

In the meantime, I'm off to pick up the oriole feeder that the blackbirds once again knocked off the hanger while attempting to drink the nectar inside.

Rapt-ure

A broad-winged hawk was sitting at the side of the road the other day. About two feet tall, with a rusty brown-and-white speckled belly and a sharply hooked beak, the hawk was enjoying the morning sun, every now and then turning its head to watch the passing motorists.

Every now and then, I'll hear the distinctive call of the broad-winged hawk coming from within the forest behind our home. The ear-piercing "Caaaaall!" often sends the little songbirds that gather at my feeders fleeing for protective cover... in the very woods from which the hawk called.

Smart hawk.

My 16 year old, M, never fails to remind me that each of the colorful birds seen at and around Forest's Edge all descended from the dinosaurs. Watching a black-capped chickadee or a sunny goldfinch, I sometimes forget facts like this, but it is always present in my mind whenever I catch site of a raptor.

Perhaps amongst the most majestic of all birds, the raptors -- also known as birds of prey -- are hunters, sometimes of fish, mammals, and smaller birds, occasionally of carrion (or ex-animals, as Monty Python might phrase it). Not a day goes by here that I do not hear the call of a hawk (in addition to the broad-winged, sharp-shinned hawks and red-tailed hawks call this area home) or see the circling dance of several raptors overhead.

According to the local nature center, bald eagles also frequent this part of the state, but I have yet to see one in the wild... unless you count M's bald-eagle kite, which also tends to send my songbirds skittering.

Daily, however, the sight of two or more raptors idly gliding through the air above our acreage never fails to send me running for the binoculars in the hopes that I might be able to identify these as bald eagles, our national bird, or at least one of the rarer hawks -- the Northern Harrier, for instance. Unfortunately, I need better eyes, or better binoculars, or both, because I can never zoom in close enough to see anything other than outstretched wings silently gliding overhead.

I began studying the angle of those outstretched wings, the color of the rows of feathers, the glide versus the flap, to see if I could better identify our regular raptor bunch. And bunch is indeed the term, as there have been times I've seen more than half a dozen of these over our woods. Still, I wasn't able to pinpoint which bird of prey this was.

J, however, took one look and declared, "Turkey vulture." He smiled smugly and pointed at the square shape of the tailfeathers of the birds up above.

Darn it, but he was right.

Turkey vultures? I had hoped for something more elegant, more awe-inspiring, more...attractive. With its bald head (and that's literally bald, to keep from fouling its feathers at the carcasses it eats) and pink skin, the turkey vulture is not going to win any birdie beauty contests. The stigma of being a vulture -- waiting for death to come to dehydrated desert hikers -- doesn't help it much, nor does the fact that it feeds its young by regurgitating the carrion it eats. Still, I have to admire its design: talons made for walking up to its food rather than clutching it (perfect for approaching road kill); a developed sense of smell that few birds have (the better to sniff out putrefying flesh); and that clean, bald head (no mess to clean up after eating).

Nope, still doesn't do it for me.

Ah, well. It takes all kinds of creatures to make Nature work well, and the turkey vulture has its place in the local circle of life, too. With so many circling overhead during prime fledgling season, I imagine that it's up to the vultures to clean the woods of baby birds that couldn't survive outside the nest as well as weaker mammals who aren't succeeding in summer-heat survival. The poor wild turkey that was killed in our backyard about a month ago (most likely by a coyote) was picked clean within a week, most likely by a turkey vulture or two... which, incidentally, pooh-poohed the fresh house sparrows we left out for them nearby. Too little meat, too many bones, I suppose.

In the meantime, I'll keep count of our bluebird couple's chicks and, if necessary, M has his eagle kite at the ready to keep the turkey vultures from getting any ideas about the chubby little mammals (aka M's littlest brothers) that inhabit this neck of the woods. I'm sure our groundhogs heartily approve.

Seasonal Changes

Numerous birds -- or flocks, in the case of the blackbirds, grackles, and cowbirds -- have chosen to make Forest's Edge their summer home. At last count, four ruby-throated hummingbirds buzz around our feeders, playing high-speed games of chase and king-of-the-mountain. I know the females have nests somewhere in our yard, but being walnut-sized blips there's no way my eyes can pick them out.

Nor have I been able to spot the nests of the two dozen or so American goldfinches that frequent our thistle feeders, or the nests of their house finch counterparts or the quartet of purple finches that stayed in the vicinity instead of heading further north.

The mourning doves make themselves quite at home, and can often been seen comfortably sunning themselves on our deck in the morning and our walkway in the afternoon. Although they still tend to flee upon our approach, at least they don't take off in panic whenever I open a door.

For some of our birds, summer is a thing soon drawing to a close. Our barn swallows and their fledglings -- a good two to three dozen swooping, blue-and-orange birds -- have already started their migration back south, as have most of the birds in the swallow family. Insect eaters exclusively, they need to establish their wintering grounds and therefore need to arrive south early enough to scope out the best bug-filled places. Our oriole trio has also headed south, in search of fruitier lands to tide them over until they return this way in spring.

For other birds, this is their arrival time in our neck of the woods. This part of the state is prime migration territory, where avian species that summered over in cooler, northern climes stop for a day, a week, a month before continuing their flight south. Already we've had several new visitors. Five pairs of chipping sparrows recently joined our backyard bird bunch, with several of them bold enough to join the finches on the thistle feeders while the others steadfastly remain ground feeders, pecking at the seeds dropped below. Chipping sparrows are known to summer throughout our state but, with the exception of the cowbird-invaded couple, we had no others until two weeks ago and now it's almost as if we're swimming in the cute, red-mohawked little cheepers.

Another recent arrival is the tufted titmouse. Unlike the chipping sparrow, the tufted titmouse is a year-round denizen of this part of the state. Why it took so long to arrive here is anyone's guess. Usually seen alone, I was thrilled to see not one but two at our bedroom feeder, eating the peanuts I'd put out specifically for them. I have high hopes that the titmice might investigate the three decorative birdhouses I have out front and choose to roost inside one.

If not, then perhaps the black-capped chickadees that arrived last week will move in; the birdhouses are sized for them, titmice, and wrens. Like the titmouse, the chickadee is supposedly a year-round bird, although it first appeared at my oil sunflower feeder out front last week. There are four of them, and the kids are captivated by the cute, chubby little bird and his "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" call.

Other birds seem to simply be passing through. I've seen two tree swallows -- one yesterday, one the day before --- perching on one of the nesting boxes and, egads, the playground swing beam. Most likely they're following the swallow migration, but a part of me hopes they are also investigating potential nesting sites for next year. Tree swallows are welcome nesters, cavity birds like bluebirds. They will even defend bluebird nests from invaders like house sparrows and starlings. Hopefully more will come this way before continuing their southern migration.

An unfamiliar call coming from high atop one of the mature deciduous trees in the back forest led me to quickly snap a photo of what, to my eyes, appeared to be a yellow blob but, thanks to my camera, was readily identified as a female scarlet tanager. Scarlet tanagers prefer woodlands, and the tops of trees especially, where it hunts for insects and can keep an eye out for predatory birds. Tanagers are among the first birds, along with swallows, orioles, and grosbeaks, to leave in the fall, and this female was no exception to that rule.

Our grosbeaks, however, seem quite happy where they are for now. Known to be one of the last birds to arrive in spring and one of the first to leave, the grosbeaks surprise me, as I expected them to have left already. Every morning and every late afternoon, however, I find them perching on the deck rail, waiting to greet me, before hopping over to the safflower feeder. We have a few new grosbeaks, too: a young couple -- a King Street punk and his gal opposed to our very proper British-like couple. The young male is less plump, more streamlined, and has far fewer splotches of white on his back. His mate has well-defined white eyebrows and is also more sleek than our Mrs. Grosbeak. They also are more nervy -- when hungry, they just fly straight for the feeder, dispersing any birds that might already be there. Mr. and Mrs. Grosbeak surely must not approve. I'm sure the house finches don't.

As for Sean and Bluette, I haven't seen them in days. This in part is due to scheduling; I just don't happen to be around when it's prime feeding time for them and their fledgling quintet. The mealworms I set out for them are always gone, however. Among my To Do items is set out mealworms and then sit nearby, camera in hand, waiting for them to come eat. Last night, as I was serving dinner to my own brood, I noticed a blue blob, then another, on the bluebird hook and feeder. Grabbing the binoculars, I was surprised that it was not Sean and Bluette but another bluebird couple. I'd forgotten that, although some bluebirds do winter in our area, most also head south. This pair had undoubtedly seen the Dinner Bell full of mealworms and paused in their travels. Perhaps they noticed all the nice bluebird boxes on our acreage, and will come back to nest next spring. Sean could use a little male bonding... or rivalry in flying at my camera!

Every day seems to bring new arrivals for the season. Some, like the American goldfinch and the mourning dove, will stay here instead of travel southbound. Some, like the dark-eyed junco, the white-crowned sparrow, and the white-throated sparrow, will not just pause here but will actually stay for the winter, then head back north again. The seasonal changes do mean saying goodbye to some of our colorful summer friends, but I look forward to our new arrivals... and the long-awaited departure of my blackbird bunch (and my apologies to the poor Southern homeowner who'll inherit the 133 grackles, cowbirds, and blackbirds for the winter!).