sIn my last entry I posted a late afternoon photo of Sam. Call it intuition, foresight or whatever but after I took those photos on the evening of the 25th Sam left within hours despite my searches for him at other known resting spots the next day and today. Nah! He is headed back north. Something inside me drove me out there to get photos of a bird that had been here ALL winter. Odd is it not? Just just a couple of hours before he was gone. I have a worm in my head that I sometime think brings in things I would likely not otherwise know in advance but read on.
On the same day (April 25) I last heard the Yellow-green Vireo. It was so close to the house that I could sometimes hear it from the backyard, but since the morning of the 25th, the same day that Sam vanished so did the vireo. I am saddened by that for it was here for almost 2 weeks and was hoping for a nesting pair.....Maybe it moved elsewhere in town. I mean they have to go somewhere. Now that it seems to be gone, I will state the location as being the ash woods in the backyards behind the Methodist Church.
In the very short time I had to bird in town today, none of the previous highlights were noted but there remain scores of spotted thrushes and other migrants. The Hooded Oriole male found yesterday was the highlight of the day and only the 3rd ever I have had in Calhoun Co. I did not add a new 2010 bird to my "square mile" list today given the brief time I was out between chores. A couple of Lazulis remain and one was in the Hockey's mulberry which might be a yard bird (?) I missed the Black-headed Grosbeak, Bullock's Oriole or any Western Tanagers from the previous days. I saw 2 Ovenbirds.
Anyway there are tons of mulberries ripe at just the right time (later than usual) and it is little wonder it is a big thrush spring here. I have my favorite trees and eat berries until my fingers are purple, despite the warning that my long departed grandma used to tell me....IE "eating mulberries will give you worms"... if so I am happy to be a worm rancher for few native fruits are better than a GOOD handful of ripe mulberry. For sure the chickens back when I was growing up ate them to the point they got fat and then so tired of them that late in mulberry season they tended to ignore them....Same deal with the big yellow fall grasshoppers that stirred up in the hundreds in the pastures in summer....AKA Differential Grasshopper (Melanoplus bivittaus). The chickens grew to ignore them once the grasshoppers were full adults , I guess because they were so tough and leathery, but an old fellow (Lem Mary) told me when I was a kid that these are what made fresh eggs yolks so bright orange in the summer...Beats me....That was so long ago.
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