On Thursday, June 30, I walked down to the edge of the woods that stretch off to the south of my house and sat down in my “thinking chair.”
This is an old Adirondack chair that faces north, back up the hill toward my house. I was a man on a mission, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to have any success. As I sat and listened, the weight of the situation sat heavy on my shoulders.
The problem was, in June 2009, I had somehow managed to accumulate a list of 52 species that had either been seen or heard in my yard (and by yard I mean the six acres of forest, field and lawn that I call “mine”).
This may match up favorably with similar lists that my fellow birders may keep, but what really had me scratching my head was the fact that at no time since 2009 had I been able to repeat that number.
I came close in 2013.
That year, I managed to list 51 species, but close is never good enough when the birding bug gets hold of you.
I wanted to break that record, but I would be satisfied with a tie. So as I sat there, I did so with the knowledge that I had once again reached 51 species. I needed one more to tie; two more to finally break the record. This was the last day of the month and I was going to need to get lucky.
Luck had already struck the previous week. I had gone down with a book and a cup of coffee where I thought it would be nice to read in the shade as the morning unfurled around me.
While taking a break from reading, I looked up and saw a flash of blue, which I initially mistook for a bluebird. The bluebirds were extremely active in my yard, but it seemed a little odd that they would be down in the “old field” section. Up came the binoculars and the oddity of the bluebird’s behavior was solved. It was a bird, it was blue, but it wasn’t a bluebird. It was an indigo bunting.
Hoping for a little more magic from the thinking chair, I had returned to see if I couldn’t detect something else. Their absence conspicuous on my list were the blue-winged warbler and the alder flycatcher. Both species were dependable “regulars,” but neither had shown up during this strange El Nino year.
I wasn’t reading a book, I wasn’t drinking coffee, and I wasn’t hearing anything to suggest an additional species would be found.
So, I got up and headed into the woods. I have cleared a trail that goes all the way back to the southern limit of my property. There, where there can be found an extremely old barbed wire fence, is also a distinct edge where the mature forest begins and the old abandoned field ends. A wonderful grove of hemlock trees dominates this area, and I can almost always end up hearing different birds in this very different habitat.
So I sat and listened, listened and sat. I kicked a few leaves around with my foot, but the longer I sat there the less I seemed to hear. It turns out that the deep forest is actually a very quiet place. The trees were magnificent and it was noticeably cooler, but I felt as though I were in some kind of museum. I decided to head back, and that’s when fortune struck. Ahead of me, back toward my house, was the unmistakable sound of an eastern wood peewee.
The 2009 record had been tied!
Hearing a bird is great, but seeing it is even better. So, without too much concern for making much noise, I hustled back in the direction of the little record-breaker. The problem was that the bird seemed to be moving north faster than I was, and it didn’t take long for me to be completely left behind. Ah well, I still had accomplished my objective. I continued up the trail, making a hard right where the path skirts a ravine, and headed back to the thinking chair.
That’s when fortune struck a second time.
As you know, we’ve been suffering a bit of a drought lately. This made mowing the trails in my meadow much easier, but it also caused the stream in my ravine to dry up prematurely.
Well, it turns out that two days earlier (that would have been June 28) a severe thunderstorm passed over my neighborhood and dumped a lot of water in a very short time. This, in turn, created a surge of water that brought the seasonal stream back to life, but by June 30 the flow was already noticeably slacking off again. Slow as it was, however, the stream had captured the attention of a wonderful bird called a northern waterthrush (Seiurus noveboracensis).
The 2009 record was broken!
Now, the reason I am telling you this story is because I had delayed telling it earlier in the hopes of going down to the stream with my camera and getting an actual photo of the waterthrush. The problem here lies in the fact that I was basically trying to predict where a lightning bolt would strike.
I have seen waterthrushes in this stream before, but usually in the springtime, when the combination of melting snow and spring rains have the seasonal stream at its highest. The fact that we had no snow this year — combined with a serious lack of rain — meant that the stream has been dry for quite some time.
The waterthrush must be down in the valley where a small river runs throughout the year and the gully-washer was sufficient to bring the steam back to life and interest the waterthrush in doing a little exploring. By the time I saw the bird it had basically reached the headwater of the stream and would have ended up out in the meadow if it continued further.
Well, on Wednesday I made my last foray down to the stream, but the waterthrush did not make an appearance. My movement along the rocky side of the ravine, as I looked for a place to sit, did end up disturbing a white-footed mouse, but no waterthrush. It was not a wasted trip, however.
I spent some time in my thinking chair in the hopes that I might catch sight of that indigo bunting again. The bunting never showed up, but I was the object of the most intense scrutiny you can imagine. Among the many birds that stopped to look at me, there was a male common yellowthroat that was very unhappy with me. He chipped and complained for the duration of my visit. More amusing was the attention I received from a song sparrow fledgling. Its mother, or father, was quite flustered, but the young bird came quite close and gave me a good long look. I stayed as motionless as possible while taking its photo.
Then, out of nowhere, an X-Factor bird showed up. I managed to get a photo, but not the best. It’s a flycatcher. It’s an Empidonax flycatcher.
Beyond that, however, I am stuck. Is it an adult or a young-of-the-year bird? Hard to tell, and that’s the issue with Empidonax flycatchers. I know I have heard alder flycatchers in this meadow in the past, and the general lack of whiskers around the beak makes me lean toward alder (Empidonax alnorum). If you know your flycatchers, and can make an argument for willow or acadian, I’d love to hear from you.
So there it is. Magic struck, I set a new record for birds observed in June, and in an attempt to capture a photo of the record-breaking bird, I end up with two beautiful photos of the “regulars” and a mystery flycatcher.
And, all I had to do was go outside and sit in a comfortable chair at the edge of a beautiful meadow. If you have the time I would highly recommend giving it a try.
Bill Danielson has worked as a naturalist for 22 years. In that time, he has been a national park ranger, a wildlife biologist and a field researcher. He currently works as a high school physics and biology teacher. His Speaking of Nature column runs weekly in The Recorder. To contact Bill, or to learn more about his writing, visit: www.speakingofnature.com