The Daily Bucket is a place to catch your casual observations of the natural world and turn them into a valuable resource. Whether it's the first flowers of spring or that odd bug in your basement, don't be afraid to toss your thoughts into the bucket. Check here for a more complete description.
Seattle.
I've been totally flummoxed over the past 24 hours by the variety of unfamiliar buzzes and chips and trills coming from around the house. They are everywhere - up in the canopy, over by the roses, down under the woodpile.
The trills sound kind of like a warbler, way up there in the treetops. I haul a chair and the binoculars out onto the back porch and sit goggle-eyed until my neck hurts. Nothing.
The buzzes have that Rufous Hummingbird vintage Volkswagen timbre, so I sneak
oh-so-slowly down the back stairs, across the concrete and over to the bushes where I can peek around to see the first red roses. Nothing.
The chips sound like maybe they come from a wren, so I stand in the bay window half hidden by a curtain, peering into the woodpile. Nothing.
I dream a birder's anxiety dream - standing in the forest surrounded by birdsong and not being able to identify a single one because I never listened to the tapes, and yes, my degree depends on this.
4:00am. The robins start up. Then the crows. I fall back to sleep and am awakened by The Trill. It's light now. I haul myself out of bed, creep carefully down the stairs so as not to wake Mr Bwren or the houseful of guests sleeping in the guestroom and on the couch. Grab the binoculars and gently make my way to the back porch. The trill comes from up at the top of the neighbor's cedar tree and yes, there's a bird silhouetted there in the scrim of morning light.
It's a Dark-eyed Junco, Oregon version, and it's not a bird that has ever hung out in my neighborhood any time after about mid-March. But there he is, happily singing from the top of my neighbor's cedar tree. I note him on the calendar and start the morning coffee, only to be distracted mid-process by the return of the chips and buzzes.
I rush to the back porch and the chorus comes from the woodpile. When I look at the woodpile it comes from the front yard. When I slam open the front door a streaky-breasted bird with junco-white petticoats jumps from under the porch into the fir tree and poses long enough for a positive ID. A Dark-eyed Junco fledging, in my front yard. I have never seen this before. In fact, the reported breeding range for Dark-eyed Juncos in Washington is limited to the mid to upper elevations of the Cascade Mountains to the east and the Olympics to the west. Not down here at sea level.
I watch until this little guy flutters off around the side of the house, then quietly close the front door and finish making coffee, tickled by the thought that one of our regular winter residents has a whole vocabulary that I never knew existed. It's too soon to think about just why they might have stayed down here this year.
Mr Bwren and our guests sleep on.
###
Fledglings? Mystery sounds or critters? Tell us where you are and what you do or don't know about what's happening around you.
I'll be back in the early evening PDT to reply.