Towheeblog

Our part of Salem does not reverberate with great singers. The rock cafes are elsewhere. When there’s opera in town it’s off in some theatre. Once in awhile I hear recorded music play from a neighbor’s house or vehicle. Meh. There seem to be no chorus frogs, few crickets. No Mockingbird or thrasher or skylark. We do get some goldfinch song, a few short and bold phrases from the Bewick’s Wren. Mostly it’s caws of crows, various announcements by jays, a brief tune from the Song Sparrow, a buzzing towhee, a drumming woodpecker. So I am attentive now that out local acapello profundo is performing off and on through the day: Black-headed Grosbeak. One singer? A pair (as females sing as well as males)? Competing birds settling in to nest? We hope so. A female frequents the feeders even after the window incident…see below.

I yhiougght I had witnessed a grosbeak disaster. A female slammed into our front window, despite the flashy6 scare tape mthat hangs there, shaking and shimmering and keeping nearly all birds away. Did she panic overr a passing predator? Was she confused by this new terrain after many days of migration? She lay stunned in the fern below the window. After a few minutes of recuperation, she left, bacl to ther world of grosbeaking.

MORE GARDEN BIRDS
The little guy is a Wilson’s Warbler, a bird I rarely see in my garden. The towhee, and hidden sapsucker, the dining nuthatch are local regulars. The waxwing was alone and a surprise, probably the only time this year I will see a waxwing in our spring garden, or see a lone waxwing anywhere.

I saw my first dragonfly of the year today! Hooray, ’cause I’m seein’ aphids…oh ladybug, ladybug, where are thou?
The chickadults are feeding young in the cherry tree cavity.