Woods wonders

We saw an unprecedented five hawks in the woods yesterday. Two were Cooper’s hawks, flying together — a sobering reminder that all these beautiful spring warblers are in a daily fight for survival.

Along with the yellow warblers and blue wings, chestnut-sided warblers were working the treetops.

I heard but never saw a prairie warbler. (I even resorted to standing in a meadow with my phone, playing the recording of this warbler’s call from the All About Birds site… That was a first!)

There were two Eastern towhees digging in the leaves, rising briefly from time to time to send out their loud “Drink your tea!”

Why isn’t it in better focus? Bummer. I think it’s because I was using the hood in a spot where the sun wasn’t particularly bright. Such a beautiful bird, and I’ve been trying to get a picture for a few weeks now. Oh well.

There is a brown thrasher in the same area. He’s a rich cinnamon color and I just love to hear him, but he doesn’t pose for pictures. Last year I got a good one, though. This year the catbirds are the ones posing for pictures as they chatter in the bushes.

Once you see something once, it has a way of being visible again. So it is with oven birds. Before this year I never saw even one; now I’ve seen several.

I wanted to warn him to hush; there were hawks about. I’ve read that only 50% of oven birds survive. But he vanished into the leaf litter.

The dogwood and red trillium are blooming. The latter isn’t very prevalent, but I saw a few plants. There were lots of dogwood blooms illuminating the woods.

3 leaves, 3 sepals, 3 petals. This one’s drooping bloom is propped by a twig so I could snap my photo. Red trillium is also called wake robin — a wonderful, suggestive name that alludes to another favorite herald of spring.