summer lumbers

top: kentucky warbler, bottom: blue-gray gnatcatcher; both pics courtesy dave patton

     "....but ask the beasts, and they will teach you;

the birds of the air, and they will tell you;

or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;

and the fish of the sea will declare to you."

-- Job 12:7

     not surprisingly, the "heat of the summer" arrives each year with simultaneous signs thereof from the local plants and animals. wildlife scientists refer to such signs as "phenomena," a term which illicits a chuckle....i mean, these "signs" amount to nothing more than living creatures doing what they do, you know? again, dylan's sardonic, 'ballad of a thin man" plays in my head:

"....you've been with the professors, and they all like your looks.

among great lawyers, you've discussed lepers and crooks.

you've been through all of f. scott fitzgerald's books:

you're very well-read, it's well known.

and you know something's happening

but you don't know what it is

do you, mr. jones....."

     but i digress......................................so........... summer really begins to bear down on us at about the same time as local birds exhibit the "phenomenon" known as "post-breeding dispersal" whereby they move off of their hallowed, oh-so-carefully-chosen nesting territories, and out into the Big World.....the world of adventure.........of reward and punishment..........of new sights, sounds, tastes........

     at our place in the woods of northeastern lafayette parish, the phenomenon usually announces itself with the  sudden presence of individual birds that don't nest at our place.....chief among this group is the blue-gray gnatchatcher, a tiny puff of a bird.....probably doesn't weigh as much as a dime.....looks like a micro version of a mockingbird; sounds like a micro version of a blue jay ("nyay! nyay!").......................during the late morning of this past monday (19 july) -- just when everything was slipping into its summer survival-induced mid-day slumber -- the first blue-gray gnatcatcher of the summer lit in the double-blush altheae tree just off of our back porch.............lydia and were sitting there in the protective shade of the north side of the house. "nyay! nyay!," it hollered, busy in its perpetual hunt for gnats & such................occasionally it jumped up into the air, snagging invisible flying insects with loud SNAPs of its needle-like bill..............................

     a couple of days later i noticed that our own nesting kentucky warblers had departed........slipped away, really, as they don't exactly announce their departure to the world at large.....but i could tell they were gone, more by the sudden absence of the male's rolling, "churrychurrychurry" song, which he pretty much constantly utters from the thicket just across the coulee from our backyard..........ditto for the local prothonotary warblers a few days later...............................zip...............................out of nowhere, they're suddenly gone.................................................................the strange thing about the prothonotaries is that they actually come back for a brief visit (usually around mid-august) before departing for good to their winter homes way down south.

     with wading birds (herons, egrets, ibises, etc.), post-breeding dispersal occurs on a much larger scale, with individuals wandering far to the north of their breeding grounds.......each year, we hear enthusiastic reports of a white ibis being seen up in northern ohio or even new york.......ah yes......the thrill of knowing birds.....................................no matter how many years we watche them, ultimately we know just enough about them to keep us suspended in a constant state of  amazement.......which ain't a bad place to be, ya'll.