Published by Richie May 31st, 2007
in Aghaming Birds.
Copyright 2007 by Richie Swanson
Kik! cries a black tern, dangling a fish from his bill, his wings as densely dark as a massing thunderhead, edged a grayish stratus-white on front. He flies from a remote slough at Aghaming toward a marsh at Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge, once called the species’ most important breeding area on the Upper Miss. Will he land on a muskrat house, a potential nest site? Feed a female in display? He vanishes, but a second plummets suddenly-crookedly as if after a minnow, then veers jerkily with four others, their wings knifing higher than the river-bluffs, performing early courtship flights. Black terns declined 84.8% in the U.S., 1966-1989, 4.6 % per year on the Mississippi Flyway, 1966-2003. Winter flocks have decreased precipitously, and scientists fear DDT and other contaminants accumulate in black terns south of the border, perhaps causing problems in reproduction in North America. Continue reading ‘Black Tern, Great Egret, 5-27′
Published by Richie May 24th, 2007
in Aghaming Birds.
Copyright 2007 by Richie Swanson
A luminous-yellow warbler-head pokes out a hole in a stump. Tiny black eyes glisten brilliantly in dark forest-shadow. The prothonotary warbler sings Cheet!-weet!-cheet!-cheet!-cheet!-wee! He ducks inside the hole, sings invisibly, pops out, flashes white tail patches, cranks up his cheet!-weet!-cheets! He goes in, and a female–a paler yellow–clings by toes to the hole’s rim. She tips her head in, and he pushes his face out between her tarsi, bird-ankles. She can’t squeeze past him, he can’t dart out. He sings beneath her belly, and both finally squirm down into the possible nest-site. The next morning a house wren pushes a four-inch twig across the two-inch hole, the stick bending, not fitting until he pokes it straight and drags it. Now his potential mate follows him in. Continue reading ‘Warbler and Wren, 5-20-07′
Published by Richie May 17th, 2007
in Aghaming Birds.
Copyright 2007 by Richie Swanson
There’s dry-hollow knocks like an ancient-wooden clock, and then a yellow-billed cuckoo hides high in an oak, leaning, turning, and another flies up, and they blur behind leaves, and he bobs atop her, both slender like doves, grayish in cloudy light. The science says the male cuckoo reaches over the female’s shoulder, placing a twig in her bill, and the two hold it jointly until finished mating. But he hops off and dives down before I see any twig, and then she skulks forward, stares down after him and dives too, flashing rufous wings. Ka-ka-ka-ka-kow-kow-kow-kow-kowlp-kowlp-kowlp! The cuckoo utters a deliberate song vanishing swiftly from the Midwest, already gone from Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. The species declined 95% in Wisconsin 1966-1996 and continues to drop 2.5% per year in the upper Midwest, Region 3, USFWS. Continue reading ‘Clock ticks for cuckoo, 5-13-07′
Published by Richie May 10th, 2007
in Aghaming Birds.
Copyright 2007 by Richie Swanson
The south wind blows all day, gusting almost 40 mph, and the lazy-brown river suddenly rolls like surf, heaving backward, hurling spray up-channel. Leaves slap noisily on treetops, and birds from South and Central America dart around low in dense cover of exotic honeysuckles and buckthorn, foraging on leeward banks and dikes. Seventeen species that winter in mature forests in the tropics use Aghaming this weekend. Sixteen warblers use it, four considered conservation priorities by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, rare or declining. A Canada warbler spins on a branch, revealing a black necklace, and a prothonotary pokes its bill into a knothole, a possible nest site. A blue-winged forces his softly-sung beee-buzzzz into the wind-rattle, and a Cape May gleans bugs from river-birch catkins, flashing electric-chestnut ear-patches on yellow cheeks. Continue reading ‘Warblers in, 5-6-7′
Published by Richie May 3rd, 2007
in Aghaming Birds.
Copyright 2007 by Richie Swanson
The brown thrasher perches atop a plum tree, sticks his tail down into blossoms, speeds up the robin’s song, rasps and slurs it. He flutes like the wood thrush, whits and pips, sings peter-peter like the titmouse, wit-cheers like the cardinal, hurries the redbird’s pretty-pretty, then jazzes it. Dawn-light creeps up his back, and he sings reedy vibrations into softly-muttered mews, catbird sounds. He makes crow-caws musical, pipes the pump-handle calls of the blue jay, wheedles the “jay” squawk and squeaks out a rusty-rising pitch, cackling like grackles. He flutes ethereal notes like a veery in a misty hollow. He sings witchity-witchity like the common yellowthroat due next week and cries the whip-poor-will of the declining species that called across the moony Mississippi Friday at dusk. Continue reading ‘Virtuoso, whip-poor-will, prothonotary! 4-28′
