A Bird for Each Month: July to December
Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”
Wilde Seasons
Last month, I introduced this two-part essay “A Bird for Each Month” by noting that we have accepted the Roman names for our months, but choose to end the year in what the Romans recognized as Month 10! The Romans began the new year not in the dead of winter, but in March, which welcomes the reawakening of spring and the return of the migrating birds. I then picked one bird for each month to illustrate some of the phenological happenings between January and June.
A day after finishing Part I, I happened to pick up a book of poems by Oscar Wilde. Imagine my surprise when, toward the end of an eight-stanza poem, I came across lines that were perfect for the introduction to this essay:
Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come
On meadow and tree the Summer’s lordly bloom;
And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,
And send up lilies for some boy to mow.
Then before long the Summer’s conqueror,
Rich Autumn-time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;
And after that the Winter Cold and Drear.
So runs the perfect cycle of the year.
Wilde’s poem, which was entitled “Ravenna,” was inspired by a visit to this city, the ancient capital of the empire after Rome was sacked. He, like the ancient Romans, understood that the natural year logically begins in spring and ends in the cold darkness of winter. If you visit Dublin, you can spend some time bird-watching in Merrion Square Park, right across from where he once lived and where he, or rather his statue, continues to keep an eye out for the birds.
July
Every spring, when we lived in Boston, my friend Tony would urge us to come with him to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge to see the migrating warblers. Tony, a serious birdwatcher, always knew when these fascinating, colorful, restless little birds were passing through. We always accompanied him, because the cemetery was also a showcase for flowering shrubs and early spring flowers. While we were enjoying the sunny spring afternoon, we would from time to time hear Tony shriek something like “OMG – there’s a chestnut-sided warbler!” We, of course, couldn’t recognize any warbler fifty yards away near the top of a tree, but we appreciated listening to them singing for the sheer joy of it. And that would be the end of the warblers for us, for they, like us, preferred to spend their vacations further north.
Warblers typically arrive in Sugar Hill, in mid-May, which is probably a week or so after they left Boston, and many of them will stay all summer. Some, like the black-throated green and the black-and-white warblers look for nests deep in the woods. Others, including the chestnut-sided warbler, prefer the edges of the meadows. Getting a close-up view of this sociable bird is not a problem:
July 23, 1999, 90 degrees, humid, partly cloudy. I saw a chestnut-sided warbler in an alder near the Upper Meadow. Actually, it saw me first and flew to a branch about 5 feet away for a closer look.
May 26, 2016. A chestnut-sided warbler poked about the brush five feet away from me as
we gathered around the base of the new solar array. This was the least flighty warbler ever.
If you see a warbler flitting about low alders or willows at the edge of a meadow in July, it may well be a chestnut-sided. If so, be patient, for once it notices you, it may well land a short distance away, and the male will be happy to show off its chestnut-colored flanks.
July 28, 2017 A chestnut-sided warbler paused long enough for me to catch his brilliant colors in this photo.
August
Great blue herons are magnificent birds. Seeing one flying across the road is worthy of comment. Seeing one guarding its nest high in a tree by a swamp is a treat. Seeing one hunting for frogs is memorable.
August 8, 2019, 84 degrees, partly cloudy, not humid at 330 because of earlier heavy rain. A great blue heron just flew off from next to our dock. I not only hadn’t seen it, it hadn’t even occurred to me to look. No coincidence that I saw the first small leopard and pickerel frogs yesterday, or that I saw five of them today.
August 11, 1999. A great blue heron was at the end of the pond, on a rock, croaking (like a frog?). He did this for 5 minutes, then jumped into the water and picked out something small. I walked out on the dam to get a closer look, and made it directly across from the
heron. I didn’t notice the bittern, who flew out of the reeds, surprising both me and the heron, who took flight as well.
August 20-21, 2000. The blue heron was hunting at the pond on the 20th and the 21st;
we think it is going for the young green frogs, which sit with their heads just out of the water
hoping an insect will land within their “kill” range of about 3-4 inches. Near the Point,
young green frogs can be seen sitting still every foot or so along the shore. More small frogs are
on the other side of the pond, where they tend to stay on the bank, a foot or two up in the
weeds.
August 20, 2017, 74 degrees, PC, breezy, wonderful! A great blue heron flew up as I walked
by the northeast corner of the pond – I may have saved a frog or two.
August 7, 2020. A great blue heron landed on Kennerson’s dock, sat there for a while, then moved to various spots along the shore. Eventually it began to hunt for the small frogs that are emerging from the pond.
September: Fall Migration
Flickers are reliable migrants, both in the spring and the fall. We frequently see a half dozen or more spread out across the lawn busily looking for insects and digging for ants. We also see them on lawns as we drive through town.
September 16, 2020. A lone flicker poked about the front and back lawns.
September 30, 2018, 58 degrees, partly cloudy. Flickers in the yard and flocks of small
migratory birds on Pearl Lake Road; three jakes and five other turkeys along I93.
October
By early October, the wild flowers have gone to seed, reminding us that summer is long gone and that it is time to get ready for winter. While the flowers no longer light up our days, their seeds provide a nice meal for the migrating birds. White-throated sparrows are one of my favorites, and they seem to really like the seeds of the white flat-topped asters that stand four or five feet tall along the dam and in the Upper Meadow.
October 8, 2013. White throated sparrows were eating the seeds of white flat-topped asters.
I didn’t identify either the sparrow or the wildflower captured in the photo below. However, after finding the above entry from the same time of year in 2013, I am sure that my caption for the photo is accurate.
October 4, 2021. A white-throated sparrow picks seeds off the faded white-topped asters.
November
In late fall, if the ground isn’t covered by snow, a few migrating birds will be lingering in the North Country. The woodcock, famed for its mating ritual in early spring, can be seen now and then throughout the summer and the fall. For some reason, they don’t seem to mind me much as they go about their business.
September 28, 2007 70 degrees, cloudy. At dusk, a woodcock flew two feet from my head as I
stood still on the path just inside the entrance through the hedge to the Back 4. It flew about
20 feet, landed in a little cleared area and eyed me for about 2 minutes. I didn’t move, so he
proceeded to waddle about, poking the ground a couple of times.
October 26, 2022, 62 degrees at dusk, 6pm. Three woodcock flew up from the Lower Meadow
and then right over my head as I was watching a bat circling over the Pond.
November 3, 2014. A woodcock flew up as I walked out to my wood shed; another flew up
when I walked by the pond.
Woodcock may not be the first or the last of the migrants, but no other migrants are here for so much of the year. Red-winged blackbirds may arrive a week or two earlier in March, but they are gone by the end of summer, while woodcock can be seen until the beginning of November. Thus, these interesting birds are here for eight months of the year.
November 6, 2020, 4:45pm. When I went to the kitchen for a late afternoon snack, a woodcock was outside on the lawn doing the exact same thing
December
By mid-December, the last of the summer residents have headed south, and the first of the winter residents have shown up. Sometimes the last departure and the first arrival happen on the same day:
December 16, 2020, 10 degrees, partly cloudy. A last, lonely starling showed up at the feeder,
probably wishing he’d stayed with the flock that had long ago left the frozen north. Probably
my latest view of one in Sugar Hill, documented only by this note and a poor photo. I did
manage better photos of the Evening Grosbeak that foraged for sunflower seeds under the
feeder.
Evening Grosbeaks don’t show up every year, but when they do show up, they are always welcome. They often travel in small flocks, and they are most commonly seen in late winter.
December 12, 2020. A pair of grosbeaks arrived, the earliest I have seen them in Sugar Hill. They usually wait until well into the New Year.
Why have I picked evening grosbeaks as the Bird of the Month for December if they normally don’t show up until a month or two later? Because, when they do arrive at this time of year, that really is a Christmas present!
