Last year the wrens took over the clothespin bag a couple of feet away. After the young had matured enough to leave the nest, Mom and Dad did also. They actually build small houses, nests with a roof and one door. Last year’s house sits now on our mantle over the living room fireplace. The wrens are fun to watch, and mind you; they will scold you if you get close to their home.
A few days back a large swarm of what appeared to be termites exited an opening space where the unused buildings sit along Second Street. It may have taken four hours or so for that swarm to make the exit. The air was filled like a mist, like fog.
It didn’t take long for the barn swallows, the purple martins, the swifts and the mosquito hawks to find the swarm. They feasted for hours along a several block stretch darting here and there, up and down. I wonder how many termites made it through there alive? The barn swallows are in their full mating colors and at times will light within feet of people for their mating dance. Marvelous.
The sparrows are mating now as well. They are small and quite energetic. Their ritual takes place mainly on the ground. They chit, chit, chit rapidly nearly in unison while the wings flap down stirring up dust and sand. The females are outstretched and the tail points to the sky almost as if they were wrens or game birds. Sparrows build small open nests in smaller trees or on lower branches away from climbing creatures. They roam no more than a few hundred yards during their entire lives.
The mallards have again taken over the streets, their mating season several months long nearing an end. This year there are noticeably fewer young swimming along or moving about. I mentioned sometime back that there seem to be fewer and fewer females. What happens to the birds when they die? Where do they go? For as many birds as there are, we see few carcasses and those are mainly from accidental deaths. I wonder?
Then there are the doves. Most of what we have here are ring-necked doves. There are also a few ground doves, much smaller in size and brownish in color that fly lower and less often than the bigger ones. While pretty in flight, the ring-necked doves are becoming a nuisance and seem to be growing in large numbers. I’m told they are not native to here. Suppose we import a pair of peregrine flacons. I bet their numbers would thin out a good bit.
There’s not much to report on the water birds, the wading birds, the like. For the most part, the migrations are over. We’ve noticed over the past two years a drastically reduced number of ibises. We talked to Kenny of the Wildlife Service about that and he said that frankly, they are concerned. They think the spring droughts of the past couple of years have forced the ibises to feeding grounds farther and farther inland making it difficult for the mating pairs and the young to survive.
That’s as it goes, I guess. And speaking of going, that’s what I intend to do. So, we’ll talk to you next time after a little piece of looking for Trouble in Cedar Key. And enjoy these midweeks when we have the town back for a little while. And take time to notice the birds.
Copyright © by Gene Benedict 2019 November 20
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