I had a Mourning Warbler singing in my yard this AM. Both Black-billed and Yellow-billed Cuckoos. And our perennial Barred Owls. I actually had a face-to-face with one of them a couple days ago, down in the hemlock-shaded ravine.
Elsewhere around my local haunts I had two grunting Virginia Rails, a thunder-pumping American Bittern, and a pair of Northern Harriers, the female mostly out of sight at her nest, but popping up several times, with the more visible male attending closely, before going off to hunt. Up on top of Bald Hill my 70 year old brain dipped on a variant bird song that is actually very familiar to me, as the species also nests in numbers around my place, and indeed in many other locations around the greater West Danby area. Bald Hill was my last stop before home, and I kept the song replaying in my mind until I had a cup of coffee in hand and told Patricia about it. And as these things go, as soon as I’d put my failure into words, the solution presented itself! The song variant was that peculiar inversion that Hooded Warblers sometimes sing, as part of their so-called “Dawn Song”. Maybe my brain couldn’t retrieve the ID in real time because morning had left the dawn so far behind (it was after 10:00 AM), or maybe I just wanted a cup of coffee... Wait! That’s the same thing! -Geo -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
