Date: 6/12/25 6:15 am From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 12 June 2025: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
4:08 a.m. Awoke to robins crooning in the maples. Phoebe nesting in the
garage, still in shade, tongue-tied and fixed to nest as a barnacle to a
rock.
5:02 a.m. (five minutes before sunrise). 64 degrees, wind Southwest five
miles per hour, gusting to twelve; holds down mosquitoes. Aspen leaves,
like flowing water, a constant sound that presides over a small portion of
the road, rivulets of agitated leaves. Elsewhere, an aspen background
accompanies an ensemble of energetic songbirds. Pastel peach across the
sky, east to west, brushstrokes of color. A line of high, round, purplish
clouds scuds east. Sun, a shade of red-eft orange not yet recognized by
Crayola, screened by a tissue-thin mist, holds color high into the sky,
turning the purple flowers of a rhododendron lucent. Inside the
rhododendron, a catbird gives voice to a wall of flowers the size of
softballs.
First dragonfly of the year. Tiger swallowtails, yellow shards, sunlight
bright, flit along the roadside, pollinating raspberries, cherries, and
phlox.
Chipmunk in a stonewall, clucks ... the sound of indigestion.
*Among the Birds: *Thirty-five species: eight warblers (parula, ovenbird,
black and white, black-throated green, yellow, yellowthroat,
chestnut-sided, blackburnian), three vireos (red-eyed—no surprise here or
anywhere else—blue-headed, warbling), two flycatchers (great crested,
eastern phoebe), two *corvids* (blue jay noisy and crows silent; raven
absent), one raptor (red-shouldered hawk—heard but not seen), one
woodpecker (yellow-bellied sapsucker, a dithering percussionist). Mourning
dove. The usual suspects: chickadees, titmice, nuthatches (both), three
sparrows (chipping, song, junco), two finches (purple, house). Cedar
waxwing and brown creeper and hermit thrush, the sweetest voice on the
Hill. Ruby-throated hummingbird, throat on fire, bill a remarkable tool
with remarkable adaptations: a jousting weapon, a straw, a tweaser, an
instrument of pollination and thermoregulation.
Northern house wren, much noise from so small a bird. Looks like a knot on
a loop of an electric line. Dark-eyed junco flies by with a bill full of
aspen fluff, nest lining ... a soft bedding for tiny eggs. American
goldfinches, colors in agreement with swallowtails, undulate over the
meadow, dispensing songs.
*Department of Persistence: *5:20 a.m.: Indigo bunting, a bird of hedgerows
and wood margins and blackberry tangles, on the tip of a spruce full of
verve. Issues hurried couplets, warbly notes (with
variable transliterations: *fire-fire, where-where, here-here; *zay-zay,
*zreet-zreet*, *zeah-zeah*). Arthur Cleveland Bent, author of the
twenty-one-volume *Life Histories of North American Birds *(1910 - 1968),
wrote, "The remarkable thing about this is that the rhythm [of the indigo
bunting's song] is exactly that of a well-known human jingle, *Bean
porridge hot, bean porridge cold. Bean porridge in the pot, nine days old."*
I can't say I hear the "bean diddy" ... but this is an energetic songbird.
Turns head while singing. Realigns several feathers under each wing.
Resumes singing. Repeats the process several more times, always turns head
mid-song. Prominently colored (shades of turquoise, ultramarine, purple)
and prominently perched. Even the bill is pale blue.
Sings all day, though much more at dawn, all summer. Two hundred or more
times an hour at sunrise. Sixty or fewer times an hour later in the
afternoon. "Throws his notes out for all he's worth," wrote another
mid-twentieth-century naturalist.
Somewhere in the shade of a brier patch, a dun-color female assesses the
male's output, quantifies his couplets. Appraises his color.
Eventually, makes a life-altering decision. If the female prefers his
territory over the neighbor's, she builds the nest alone. Incubates alone.
Feeds the chicks alone. He might (or might not) help feed the fledglings
... but she can't count on him for much more than advantageous property and
vigorous territorial defense.
In the sexually dimorphic world of indigo buntings, color and song mean
everything. The ultramarine males arrive first. The brightest male secures
the best territory. If she likes what she sees (and hears), there's a
union. When there are two broods, as there sometimes are in Vermont, the
male may nest with another female—the female, with another male.
