Published by Richie June 29th, 2007
in Aghaming Birds.
Copyright 2007 by Richie Swanson
One minute, the blue-black Mississippi cast a glossy dawn-reflection of the tall-dark woods that have been housing the first red-headed woodpeckers I’ve encountered at Aghaming since 1998. The next moment, a breeze smelling of backwaters fermenting, of humid-black mud curdling in sloughs, wafted upriver, and fog hid the channel and bluffs. It hung green between trees in the woods as if it were sucking up and oozing the color from the chin-high poison ivy all around the nest-hole tree. I waited. No red-headeds called or appeared 5:20-6:00 A.M., nor 6:50-7:10. Sleeping in? Hidden in tree-crowns 70-feet high, dense-dark with foliage? Evicted? Depredated? No red-headeds came to the hole or nearby woods 7:00-11:30 the next morning. No quirr. No queak. Continue reading ‘No quirr, no queak, yet sapsuckers squeak, 6-26′
Published by Richie June 22nd, 2007
in Aghaming Birds.
Copyright 2007 by Richie Swanson
As the sun finishes its seasonal circle above the Mississippi, nearing the northernmost point on the celestial equator, rising behind the most-upriver bluff this year, dawn glows indigo, and 85 great egrets drop through a heat-fog the same hazy-gray as herons’ wings. The egrets growl like soft-toned dinosaurs above Osprey Marsh. The wind gusts, and they flutter like giant-white butterflies, dipping like swallows above waves, scooping fish with dangling bills.
The first red-headed woodpeckers here since 1998 quarr, kritt and drum in alarm from the bottomland woods across a slough. They may not know it, but they suffer an excess of European culture. A pair flies to a courtship limb where reverse-mounting occurred last Sunday, a sign of a deepening pair bond. The two woodpeckers swing together in perfect ritual, but now the female flies off, leaving the male bobbing by himself. Continue reading ‘An excess during Solstice Week, 6-19′
Published by Richie June 14th, 2007
in Aghaming Birds.
Copyright 2007 by Richie Swanson
A Canada warbler singing on June eighth? More than 80 miles south of the nearest nest record in Wisconsin? Chip-chupety-swee-ditchety! He advertised for a female all morning, ending his song with itchity like a common yellowthroat, flashing his black necklace above ferns, fallen logs, upturned tree roots and mossy rocks on swampy-forested banks a l suitable nest cover. An Eastern kingbird fluttered shallow wingbeats in midair, bumping bills with another, hovering slowly down to a dike, rasping, Kitterkitterkitter! She picked up a stick and tossed her head high, shaking her prize up, down, sideways. She dropped it, seized it again, repeated her routine, then flew followed by the other. She performed stick-behavior I did not find in science, and then a yellowthroat raised his black mask, singing phrases I haven’t heard during 30 years of listening. We-chew we-chew we-chew a-chew! Chew-chew-chweet-chweet!
Continue reading ‘Singing, Learning, Charming, 6-10′
Published by Richie June 7th, 2007
in Aghaming Birds.
Copyright 2007 by Richie Swanson
The first red-headed woodpecker I’ve encountered here since 1998 lands directly behind a second high in a granddaddy oak. Each leans horizontally along the limb, pointing its bill downriver. The first scoots low along the other’s back, and their scarlet heads wag. White-and-black wings flutter, fluff, tilt, and minutes later one red-headed taps a maple snag beneath a hole, bowing partway in. The second pokes out its head, chortling, Quirr! Quarr! Quarr! The first hitches itself excitedly up to a broader hole, and a wood duck veers deftly through treetops, landing above the snag. She peers at the red-headed as it ducks in. The big-white teardrops around her eyes look gentle and pretty, but her brood may be in the hole, and wood ducks sometimes clasp and snap intruders’ necks.
Continue reading ‘Red-headed, Least bittern, Red-shouldered! 6-03′
