Watched a nesting pair of Blue Grosbeaks in one of the pastures this week. Female was on a tree branch discussing something with the male who was balancing on a low shrubby plant with a fat caterpillar in his beak. He bent over into the plants and when he came up the caterpillar was gone... so maybe that’s where their nest is.
Yellow-throated Warblers way up in the Sycamore trees have become more abundant and vocal than they have been for a couple of weeks.
Lincoln’s Sparrows sing every morning. Eastern Towhees and Blue-winged Warblers nest hidden in deep tangled patches of Coralberry and Greenbrier.
Male and female Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are coming to the feeders before continuing north to their nesting grounds, and Baltimore Orioles visit the Tulip Poplar flowers as well as the grape jelly.
Heard a first-of-season, “Quick, Free Beer! Quick, Free Beer!” from an Olive-sided Flycatcher perched in the canopy of an Oak while I was planting tomatoes yesterday.
Don got several good photos of a Spotted Sandpiper as it bobbed and foraged along a gravel bar hunting invertebrates at the edge of Piney Creek far downstream from Ninestone. Today I learned from Cornell that they breed and nest here.
Acadian Flycatchers are back. Eastern Wood Peewees are calling. Common Yellowthroats, Yellow-breasted Chats, Summer and Scarlet Tanagers sing with the Great-crested Flycatchers and Indigo Buntings.
And one or two Chuck-will's-widows can be heard every night from under the native short-leaf pines or from across the creek where the forest meets the west glade.
