HollerPhenology

The bird is the word in the holler this week

An amazing new bird week started the day after my last post. On Monday, the 23rd of April, within a space of 2-3 minutes, I saw all of these birds right outside my study window (and not near the new bird feeder that no one has discovered yet!): a pair of tufted titmice, blue-gray gnatcatcher, male indigo bunting, two white-eyed vireos, a brown thrasher, cardinal, blue-headed vireo, male yellow-throated warbler, and an American redstart -- the first one of its species I have ever seen.

But it didn't stop there. On the 24th, I noticed a female Carolina wren catching food and flying toward a nest under my satellite dish. Over the next couple of days I saw both parents bringing food to the nest with greater frequency.

During my holler walk on April 27th, I heard the first wood thrush of the season, and, on the 28th, the song of a common yellow-throated warbler. 

Wren feeding nestlings on April 28, 2018. [Video: Cathie Bird]

I'm now into day 5 of the wren nest watch. After getting my video camera charged up for the occasion, I caught one of the parents -- the mom, I think -- bringing more food to the nest.

Yesterday while I was watching the wrens, I saw another holler neighbor crawling up my porch steps while my cat, Buddy, looked on:

Left to right: rat snake, buddy. [Photo: Cathie Bird]

Once it crawled out of sight, I decided I should monitor its progress, first, to make sure it didn't turn back toward the wren nest, and, second, to make sure it didn't try to go through the pet door.

Up on the porch, I got the next two photos of the snake, and of the snake approaching my dog, Shadow, who came close to sniff but otherwise took alternate routes to his favorite porch spots:

Rat snake on April 28, 2018. [Photo: Cathie Bird]

Left to right: Shadow, rat snake. [Photo: Cathie Bird]

Very slowly the snake kept moving across the porch, occasionally winding its way up the hemlock sticks then back down to the rails. When I was sure it intended to keep heading north, I went back to wren watching.

Plenty of new things happened with trees and flowering plants as well this past week. The other American beech I observe for Nature's Notebook leafed out, and the Amur honeysuckle now has flowers.

Dogwood-3 has flowers, too:

Dogwood-3 flowers on April 28, 2018. [Photo: Cathie Bird]

After a rough growing season last year, Cutleaf Toothwort-1 has safely arrived at its fruit production stage. This is the first year I've seen its fruits develop this far. I hope to catch their ripening and seed drop in days to come:

Cutleaf toothwort (Dentaria lacinata) fruits on April 28, 2018. [Photo: Cathie Bird]

Finally, here's a dwarf crested iris in bloom -- not too many out yet:

Dwarf crested iris (Iris cristata) on April 28, 2018. [Photo: Cathie Bird]

Such an exciting week in the holler, and it's only the end of April!

 

Update on phoebes in the holler

Not long after my last post on progress of the nesting phoebes and their chicks, activity in and around the nest ceased. It appeared that the chicks -- I had seen at least 3 by that time -- had either died or been eaten. The parents (or another couple?) immediately began to build up the nest again. Here's some video from May 8th:

 

To better understand what I was observing, I got a short-term subscription to The Birds of North America Online (Cornell Lab of Ornithology). The info there was very useful to interpret some of the behavior in this video.

After a couple of days of warp-drive remodeling, the birds disappeared. I wasn't sure if they had abandoned this nest for another one or were just in a holding pattern of some kind. As of Monday the 13th, I had decided they had abandoned the nest, and moved my vehicle and my own activity back to the porch-side of the house.

On Friday the 17th, I saw a phoebe near the house for the first time in about a week. It looked like this bird went to the nest but I was not in a position to observe the nest directly or get any video. Yesterday I thought I saw another visit, now, today, I got some video of a female sitting on the nest. So, next time I have to go out somewhere, I'll start using the back door again.

As I watch the newest round of phoebe activity, I'll continue to explore files on all of the bird species I observe for the USA-National Phenology Network at BNA. It's a terrific resource for more indepth info on birds and their life patterns.

By the way, on May 9th (and not too far from the nest) I almost stepped on a "creature of interest" in the disappearance of the baby phoebes:

Snakes like this black rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta) are known predators of phoebe eggs and nestlings. [Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

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Today in the holler: nesting phoebes, eastern tiger swallowtail

I got some video of one of the nesting phoebes today. It's a little hard to see, but the bird in the video has some vegetable matter in its beak. The brighter green colored area at the top edge of the nest is new material placed over the past 3 or 4 days.

 

While I was bird watching from my window today, I also saw my first eastern tiger swallowtail of the season. It was flying erratically and only landed briefly, so no photos yet.

 

Eastern phoebes nesting in the holler

For the past 6 to 8 years, a pair of eastern phoebes has used a nest they built on my porchlight. Here's a couple of recent videos.

The first one records the pair grooming themselves on the branches of an oak tree about 30 feet from the nest. The bird singing in the background is a cardinal:

 

 

I got this second video today. One of the birds has been on the nest pretty much all the time for the past few days, so I'm assuming they may be tending some eggs:

 

 

This video has a few bars of a phoebe song. I recorded this further down the holler and I'm pretty sure this is one of the birds that has a nest under a shed roof belonging to my neighbors. When the pair at my place first arrived I heard similar songs, but once they started fortifying the old nest, I've mostly heard them now doing short whistles and peeps:

 

Today's holler: rain and a gift from a Celestial Elf...

We've had strong storm systems moving across Tennessee the past few days. It's quite dark and rainy now, so no holler walk on the schedule, but...

A reader screen-named Celestial Elf stopped by a while ago and left me the most fantastic link on my Earth Day 2011 post. Here is the butterfly's tale via Celestial Elf's YouTube channel:

 

Wow, just what I needed for this soggy day in the holler! Celestial Elf has some other awesome machinima works that I hope you'll check out as well -- I really liked the bee myth, too.