The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the Bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment, and do include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located.
Seattle. January 6, 2014.
Cold, grey, and loud down at the Wetland on this year's first count day. Avian rock-concert loud, with the first hint of springtime testosterone added to the mix. I arrived as the opening act was in full swing, walking in from the south along a path shoulder high in dense brush. Two Bewick's Wrens yelled from low hidden places on either side of the path, buzzy riffs of call and response:
- I'm here!
- Yeah! And I'm here!"
- Oh yeah? Well I'm here!!
- I heard you and I am definitely by God right here!
One Song Sparrow was warming up from somewhere under a pile of brush mid way between the wrens, beginning his practice with the usual Song Sparrow
chp chp chp, then moving into brief fragments of Song Sparrow repertoire:
-chp! chp! chp!
-seepseep...
-seepseepseep.....
-chp! chp! chp!
-seepseepseepmeeeee...
-prettybird.... prettttyyyyy???
Fact is, he never really hit it. There were none of exquisitely warbled variations on the Song Sparrow theme that I hear nearer to the Spring Equinox - just soft little bits going on and on and on.
I left him to his work. Twenty paces on I was confronted by a Ruby-crowned Kinglet who sprang out of the brush, meeting me head on with crown flashing, not once, not twice, but three times - a silent carmine signal that rang out even with the big voices before and behind him, telling me that today I was a stranger in his territory.
This ... place ... is ... mine.
I conceded as graciously as I could, averted my gaze and turned from him, drawn towards the bigger voices beyond. Their owners were flitting from branch to branch in the trees surrounding the meadow around the beach. I lost count when I got to 120 dark and moving silhouettes. There were just way too many birds to make out, what with the movement and the sound and the dim grey light. I shut my eyes. After a moment I could make out the voices of Robin, of Starling, of Red-winged Blackbird - an immense murmuration of sound, rising and falling from the trees and back up into the air, no single voice predominate.
But this was a count day, the day each week when I need to count the number of individuals birds of each species that I see or hear. I tried every trick that I have learned in over a decade of counting birds. I tried differentiating by size. I tried differentiating by shape. I tried differentiating by sound. I tried working from left to right; then right to left. I tried swearing at the birds I'd already counted when they'd just pick up and fly to a tree that I hadn't counted yet, and I tried swearing at the birds that landed in the tree that I'd just counted. I tried every trick that I know, and I failed. I failed beautifully. I failed happily, reduced to a place where all I could do was surrender.
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Your turn. What's happening in your natural neighborhood? Everyone is welcome to add their observations to the Bucket.
I'll be in most of the day.
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