Discovering Nature

We went back to the Glen early this morning, this time taking the whole family. I knew when I took my husband along that we’d probably see something good. He carries the binoculars and always seems to find whatever we’re looking for.

Today was no exception. But it wasn’t the binoculars that brought the winter wren in close. It was his phone. When we heard our tiny brown friend along the creek bank, my husband brought All About Birds up on his phone and began playing the winter wren’s song. Sure enough, the real wren couldn’t resist the challenge.

He darted in close, looking for his rival and singing.

Normally I like to crop my photos, but not these. For one thing, in the dim light of the shady stream, my photos were grainy. For another, the surroundings help to highlight this bird’s size. He’s a tiny Pavarotti.

The ploy was so successful that another wren higher up in the woods also approached and entered the singing war. But having whipped up the avian passions to such a pitch, we decided to move on and let them go back to their normal routine.

What a treat to see him! You can read more about winter wrens here and here. Apparently if you live on the west coast, your winter wrens sound like the ones in Siberia, but the ones we have around here sound like the ones in England. Just one of the interesting tidbits I’m learning about these extraordinary talents in plain, brown packages.

At a distance these little birds usually look drab, and the species are hardly distinguishable, but the binoculars show them to be beautifully colored and marked, and wonderfully various in their kinds. There is always something deeply enticing and pleasing to me in the sight of them. Perhaps because I was only dimly aware of them for so long, I always see them at first with a certain unexpectedness, and with the sense of gratitude that one feels for any goodness unearned and almost missed. In their secretive worlds of treetop and undergrowth, they seem among the most remote of the wild creatures. They see little of us, and we see even less of them. I think of them as being aloof somehow from common life. Certain of the most beautiful of them, I am sure, have lived and died for generations in some of our woods without being recognized by a human being. (Wendell Berry, “The Long-Legged House”)

They were darting around in the treetops — flashes of orange and black, fluttering and falling, males clashing over the territory near the river. As much noise as they make with their insistent calls, as colorfully as they flash among the leaves, they never really sit still for pictures. I did get a few fleeting digital glimpses…

The females were more sociable and came close several times. But still, I wasn’t quick enough to capture much.

There were other birds around too… a chestnut-sided warbler…

…a blue-wing, I think:

A warbling vireo:

Some mystery birds:

And the ever-present catbird.

Besides that there were red-eyed vireos singing, and an oriole. But I was preoccupied with trying to see the redstarts.

They’re everywhere in the woods, and this is the season not only to hear them, but to see them. And to see them seeing you back.

This fellow seemed to want his picture taken…

This warbler buzzes rather than sings.

These were a treat to see…

This guy is a real tattletale — can’t stop chattering when he sees people nearby.

These next pics are grainy because they’re taken through a window across our yard, but they capture a novel phenomenon. We’ve had several male orioles in different stages of maturity hanging around, eating suet. My only theory is that it’s due to the colder-than-usual spring.