penelope-anne's Journal

Pine Grosbeaks, Wild Turkeys and Black-capped Chickadees are all the birds we have here, accompanied by a red squirrel (who takes the Chickadees food, their very self righteous) a red-headed gray squirrel, and some pigeons (I thought they only turned up in…not-winter) and also absolute clouds of some kind of ducks I can’t identify from a distance, in a moving car–Mergansers, I think? They had white patches at the head. Also Maple-tapping season, the squirrel is trying to figure out how to fit down the neck of the sap-collecting bottle, and failing miserably. Chickadees are now whistling their spring tune, a wheat-woot-woot, and sometimes, if their in the mood, they’ll make it impressively discordant, and shift up an octave.

At first it was only two of the small, fluffed up, brightly crowned birds. They were a male and female, and so I named one Ella--after a part of the species Latin name--and the other Norton.
However, now, two months after, there are now eleven Chipping Sparrows, most of them molting juveniles. can always tell their coming because of the loud explosion of:
"Chrrrwhupipchrrrrarrrrr-rrrr" that comes from the juveniles, and the insistent "Chip! Chip! Chip!" of the male.

A male Rose-breasted Grosbeak is a beautiful thing. When a family arrived a few weeks ago, there was great cause for excitement. First seen was the male, then the female, who was a slightly duller bird then her partner. She had a streaked belly, a bold white stripe above her eye, and a yellowish breast. Of course, she was quite large, and the same size as the male, who was about as big as an American Robin. They started feeding at the feeder, then disappearing. A few days later, a juvenile started coming with them. It begged every time the adults found food, by calling a Nuthatch like call and flapping its wing several times second. They continued to come to the feeder, and whenever a Grosbeak was in the tree, it seemed to frighten all the other birds away, including the ever constant supply of Goldfinches. It would feed with the other birds that stayed at the feeder, such as Purple finches and Chipping Sparrows.
Unfortunately, the pair and the juvenile disappeared after a few days, and I haven't seen them since.

The male American Robin perched on the powerlines, eyeing me. He bent to the side, and seemed to be chewing on his perch. After a moment, he started to sing.
"Porriup chirrup! Porriup pirriup! Porriup chirrup! Porriup pim!"
I listened. Many bird songs have a specialty in the name of their family. None match the Thrush family in beauty.
After a moment, he shot of his perch like an arrow, into a nearby tree. His familiar alarm calls started up. There are a large assortment of Robin calls. Alarm calls can be anything from this:
"Seep...seeeep..."
To this:
"Cheep! Puck puck puck puck puck!"
Or if there's a Hawk nearby (always Broad-winged in our case) its a loud:
"Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!"
This call is always very easy to hear from a long distance away, loud an clear.
Soon, he flew in his robin-clumsy way into the pine forest and was gone.