[birding] Jackson Frazier and EE Wilson 10/8

[howard bruner]

Goldfinch swarm the seed-rich meadow like locusts.  J-F thrums with cedar waxwings and late
crickets. Yellowthroats are still lurking in deep brown caves of cattail.  The palette is sear crisp - burned by
summer.  The wane sky has serious fliers going
big places – none of the usual flitting short hops.  Fox and song sparrows have established the
winter identity of the scrub and yellow-rumps the canopy.  I hear Lincoln’s
sparrow but cannot coax it from the hot thickets.

 

EE Wilson is full of gun-toting redhats.  Rifles and shotguns blast on all sides. Flickers
are hitting the apples and red-wings are clacking general disapproval.  Some yellowthroats are still here as
well.  Not a swallow in sight or a
tanager or a grosbeak or many of the other migrants that have finally hit the
road. They will not be back until the fields and glades are soft emerald again
and the grass is limber enough to bow to a light breeze.  

 

At my new favorite wetland complex I find a sea of hovering striped
meadowhawks in coitus a few inches above the emergent grass that has sprouted
in the last few weeks where water was for most of the year.  Hundreds across an acre or two so wrapped up
in procreating that I have to gently nudge them aside to walk out among them.  They close in a wave behind me and I am on a
moving sward of bouncing ampersands of ancient insect vitality.  Yellow jackets hunt here and watch a pair get
attacked, split apart, and the yellow jacket drive the female to the ground.  A darner (probably a California)
hunts the edge and I witness it capture and release several flying insects.  High-grading protein? At one point an
exhausted female striped meadowhawk lands on my camera and just takes a long
time-out from the frantic activity.  

 

All the time I am on my belly or knees observing and
photographing I am anxious that one of the sunscorched hunters is going to
mistake my head for some animal and blow it off.  But I get away to live another day.  It will have to be a miraculous day indeed to
equal today.   California
and spotted spreadwings were also kind enough to let me share their time and
space.  Photos provided upon request. 

 

h


 		 	   		  
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