Blizzards of Birds

Yesterday on my walk up the road I got caught in a noisy blizzard of robins whipping round and round in an aerial whirlpool. They were flocking. Today a flock of hundreds of European starlings AND robins, a mixed group, whirled up and settled in the trees and shrubs right outside the house, bleating and eating dried-out serviceberries plus bird seed. This is the best photo I got, because when I set foot outside to get better photos the birds up and streamed away. Awesome.

What Has a Yellow Belly and Sucks Sap?

Woodpecker, seen through the bedroom window, looked like a Downy but with the barring across its back all in disarray. I looked harder. It had a red chin. Peterson's told me it was a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, only the second I have ever seen here. Its yellowish belly is sometimes hard to see.

The first one appeared on my birthday, one January, some years ago. I considered it God's birthday gift to me. And here's one on Dec. 1. This area is the northern edge of their winter range, and they tend to winter somewhat farther south, preferring the West Indies (who wouldn't?), so I know he's passing through.

The photograph is from Wikipedia. I'll keep my camera handy; maybe the sapsucker will agree to pose.

Armadillos This Far North

Armadillos are tropical mammals (that's right, mammals!), but they've been in southern Missouri for several years, working their way up Interstate 44. Three years ago I saw an armadillo on Highway FF. Told the feed-store owner's son, and he said he'd seen one in the area also, but nobody had believed him. Finally, today, one turns up as road kill right where Highway FF meets F. I apologize for such a sad photo. It's just proof that armadillos do come right up to the northern edge of their range when they want something. (This is latitude 38 degrees 25 minutes North.) This one might well have been drinking from the creek. They need a lot of water. My 1946 Webster's unabridged dictionary states flatly, "Their flesh is good food."

To protect themselves, armadillos will roll up into an ball. But when startled by oncoming cars, they jump -- vertically -- which is almost always fatal. This one had a laceration along its back and down the side. Close-up, it's an almost Martian creature: blend of pig, tank and turtle, with an opossum's face and a rat's tail. But unfortunately, it's very slow.

Hummingbirds Return

Hummingbirds are back, just about at normal numbers here in eastern Missouri. Ecstatic to see mine. I asked them where they had been, but they didn't answer. That means, "Don't question us. Just enjoy us." and so I do! I hope everyone else who missed their hummingbirds has seen them "come home."

Midwest Scarce on Hummingbirds

No hummers. Day after day, I watch my three feeders. Usually they're buzzing with five or six dive-bombing rubythroat males and elegantly costumed females. But not this year.

Online "bird boards" in Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio, report the same scarcity this year. Hummingbirds appeared in Missouri as usual, around the 24th of April. But everyone's usual customers aren't coming to nectar feeders. Normal hummer activity is reported only in one remote rural area of Missouri.

Nobody knows why. Speculation about the missing hummers ranges from: the Midwest's extended winter (although hummers can survive freezing temperatures); flooding (confusing the hummers as they migrated from Mexico); a natural, cyclic decline in the population; a sinister, pollution-related population decline; and, because there's plenty of flowers the hummers don't need nectar feeders.

I miss them very much. If hummer activity picks up I will let you know.

Bird Migration News

Seen yesterday: a Yellow-Throated Warbler. My first! Now he's gone. So spring migration is finally in full swing.

Spring's first hummingbird this morning at 7:30. In 2007, first sighting was on April 12.

Anticipated soon: Baltimore oriole and Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. Pictured is last year's male oriole, on the suet. It was May 6. He and his mate mostly drank from the hummer feeders. The orioles stayed two days so I got a photo. Last year's grosbeaks stayed so long I'd hoped they'd settled, but they moved on.

To be fair to everyone else sighted around the food and water today: Pileated, downy, hairy, and redbelly woodpeckers; white-throated sparrow (with the unmistakable song!), chipping sparrow, jay, cardinal, bluebird, crow, chickadee, nuthatch, pigeon, towhee, and cowbird. The cowbirds just got here. The juncos went north last week.

Hungry Hummingbirds

In droves -- glittering little bits of birds, but geared for battle -- hummingbirds are fueling up at the nectar feeders for their annual trip to Mexico.

They are tough little things but weigh less than a penny. They fight each other, and never get along! And they are all big drinkers! If they were people, they would be like the brawlers in the parking lot after last call.

Last year they left here on September 27. I know they will be back, but it's hard to feel consoled for the loss, for six months, of these buzzing little whirlwind beings, so very different from any others it makes me wonder what God had in mind -- or if they ARE little glittering pieces of some great intelligence.