GET WILD! Forums

The ability of birds to migrate has always fascinated me.  How is it possible that these small, some tiny, animals can make their amazing, demanding journey of hundreds of miles, twice each year?   But they do and much to my joy. While I follow with interest the full cohort of feathered visitors who return to my backyard for 6 months of the year, the birds I want to celebrate in this post are phoebes. What makes them so special?  Maybe it is because the screechy “fee-bee” of the male, who is among the first birds to arrive in April, is a harbinger of spring, assuring me that it is here at last.   I think of phoebes as neighbors, even friends, the same ones that made the migration last year and maybe were even born here last summer.  The male’s call lets me know they’re back, perched nearby, tail-bobing in anticipation, waiting to snatch prey in mid-air in a display of finely-tuned acrobatics.  The repetitive call at this point is a way of warning other males that the territory has been claimed, letting them know that he’s simply waiting for the arrival of the female, which will happen a couple of weeks later. After her arrival and their mating, they select a nest site.  This is another reason why I like phoebes.  It’s easy to follow the details of nest location and construction, because they seem to insist on building nests close to houses, frequently by the front door or a window, or in an open garage.  The actual building of the nest is done by the female, a construction of mud, moss, and grass, which is sometimes constructed right on top of a former nest.   The female also does all the incubation of the 3-5 eggs, rarely leaving the nest during this time.  The incubation period lasts 16 days, with the male perching nearby.  Both the male and female feed the hatchlings, foraging on the ground or among shrubs for soft-skinned larva for the first days, in contrast to their usual aerial fly-catching.    The nestlings’ growth is swift.  After about six days, the young begin to perch on the edge and flap their wings.  At this point, I watch with amusement as the nest fills quickly to overflowing, full of big eyes, wide beaks, and downy feathers.  I have not yet ever seen the fledglings exit their nest, but I can’t help but think it must be an amazing and amusing sight. Once out of the nest, fledglings stay close to their parents for up to 3 weeks.  At first the parents provide their food, but after the first week they begin to feed on their own. Last summer, on June 4th to be exact, I happened by chance to observe this very transition in action.  I noticed two fluffy phoebes, obviously fledglings, perched close to each other on the back of one of our deck chairs. In flew a parent, whose landing bumped the far fledging off the top of the chair. The new dyad, young’un and adult, sat side by side, facing in different directions, one clearly looking for food and one clearly waiting for food to be delivered, quite oblivious to what it could do to make this happen.  As I watched, the parent eventually flew off but the fledgling stayed on, occasionally opening its mouth wide as if to invite feeding, just as if it was still in the nest.    Soon after this sighting, a second brood was incubated and hatched in the same nest: it had undergone a few minor “improvements.”  As summer ended, what had started as two phoebes, now were perhaps 10 in number.  How many of the newbies, I wondered, will make the trip successfully south and then come back again next spring?  It could be crowded here!   My last phoebe sighting was on October 9th, my little hero sat on a branch of a crabapple tree, tail-twitching, frequently darting out to catch prey in bursts of aerial prowess before returning to its perch.  Most phoebes are on their way south by early October.  I considered myself lucky to see this friend in action one last time, much too busy to take notice of my admiration. ********************************************************************************** Eastern phoebes, the type we have here in Vermont, spend their winters in the Southeastern US and the Gulf of Mexico.  Their return begins in late September and continues into early October.  In preparing this post, I ran across an online site that shows the times and routes that phoebes and other migrating birds follow each year. https://explorer.audubon.org/home?threatOverlay=expand&legend=collapse&layersPanel=expand&gclid=CjwKCAjwoqGnBhAcEiwAwK-Oka6FnkqvZQy5PC5id_EQHnr0d9__p3c9k2UW5S9ZKSRAe7EnQTRFSRoC244QAvD_BwE&y=3093234.381213841&x=1513344.0656825977&zoom=6 *Audubon also offers a fascinating description of how birds prepare for their journeys and are able to survive their long flights. https://www.audubon.org/news/five-incredible-ways-birds-change-their-bodies-spring-and-fall-migration *Be sure to watch this short, amusing video about life in a crowded nest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywKyHpMrTY8  *Phoebes are just one type of flycatcher found around the world.  In general flycatchers are not endangered, in fact their numbers are on the increase and are estimated to be around 33,000,000.  Flycatchers are usually variations of gray, black, and brown, sometimes with stripes on their wings, and most have broad flattened bills.  A beautiful, colorful exception is the vermilion flycatcher, a summer resident in the lower Midwest, Florida, and the Gulf coast.    

It’s now June, and I’ve been seeing pollinators, in the flowers, gardens and today in the woods! The pollinator garden that I planted in the fall is filled with green: penstemon, swamp milkweed, tiny leaves of Agastache, and monarda – all natives. I have faith that their blooms will coincide with the needs of the native insects who are depending on them for food. Timing is everything! Fortunately, there are shrubs and flowers elsewhere in other gardens – baptisia, one of my favorites, tall and blue, lavender nepeta, and white Rosa Rugosa, all filled with buzzing bees. We’ve seen hummingbird moths and butterflies on the dwarf lilac yesterday – always a treat!    There’s a new clearing in the woods, created by the removal of many invasive buckthorns, with a sunny space, with dirt, ferns, bloodroot, tiny maples, duff and rocks, of course – where, in Vermont, are there NOT rocks and stones?! Steve, the invasive remover extraordinaire, has planted 10 trees to fill the space: 2 sugar maples, bur oaks and red oaks. Oaks are the keystone tree, according to Doug Tallamy, hosting 500 species, more than any other tree.                 As I stood in the woods, and watched, I noticed three different butterflies in the clearing: one was large and dark, maybe a Red-Spotted Purple, another a Great Eastern Swallowtail, and the 3rd was an Eastern Tailed-Blue. I’m still learning the many Vermont butterflies, and it’s a pleasure.       We’ve seen fireflies in the meadow as well – so lovely, as they flash in the dark. They’re endangered, and we can help by turning off outside lights, using motion-detector lights ,and  closing shades or curtains at night. Light pollution has increased 100% in the last 10 years, so let’s do what we can to keep our skies dark.   

  Everything that’s happened, all that’s yet to come Is here inside this moment, it’s the only one.   -Mason Jennings   For fast acting relief, try slowing down.   -Lily Tomlin     I’m both a birder and a fly angler. This poses a time conundrum for folks like me, who have the privilege of time—namely that here in New England, bird-watching and fly-fishing both “turn on” in April, peak in May, and slow down in late summer. It would seem, then, that at any given moment, choosing to do one would require choosing not to do the other. Fortunate as I am to be faced with two equally gratifying options, it’s never an easy choice. So, when my son asked me to compete in the Otter Creek Classic fly-fishing tournament, I was happy to let him choose for me that weekend.   Steve Atocha of Middlebury Mountaineer started the OCC with fly-angler and friend Jesse Haller fifteen years ago to raise money for community outreach and conservation. Though participants—who range in skill level from junior to amateur to pro—enjoy an ethos of friendly competition and camaraderie, the early spring timing makes this a HARD tournament. Early season snowmelt combined with fast, deep, frigid water means most of us won’t catch fish.   Which is the predicament I was in by 9:50 am on Sunday morning, April 16th. It was the final day of the tournament, two-hours from closing time. Temps flirted with 85-90 thanks to a freak April heat wave that made the air too hot for waders but the water too cold for wet-wading. By then we’d been standing in the water in a rubber-suit, casting desperately to sluggish fish for 15-hours, with breaks only for snacks and sleep. Despite our best tactical efforts, neither my son nor I had caught so much as a minnow. I’d just snagged bottom on a log, lost my dozenth fly of the morning, and decided to call it.   I slumped down on a rock, my rod on my lap, and looked ten yards upstream to where my twelve-year-old bravely stood thigh-deep in the strong current--unfaltering. The sun shone down on the water, making it glisten—as if the water all around him somehow reflected the starry version of a daytime sky. He wasn’t done, or at least, not as done as I was.   I didn’t want to pull him away.   I lay my rod down, sat on my rock, watched my son, the birds, the river. A phoebe belted his burry song from somewhere nearby—free-BEE, free-BEE, free-BEE. I spotted him flitting from under the bridge to the opposite bank, to a high maple bow, back to the bridge. He made his brief, quadratic journey several times in the exact same way.   I wondered, was he the lookout who protected his mate while she built the nest that would house their hatchlings? Had he been there this whole time, keeping any eye on me? How had I failed to hear his persistent song?   My answer to the last question was easy. The phoebe’s song eluded me because I had been fishing the opposite way that I watch birds: I had been hunting. Chasing trout to win a spot on the OCC15 leaderboard, which was not at all in line with the spirit of the event. The moment I decided to “give up,” collapsing in a hot, spent heap on the rock behind me, is the moment I was free to hear the phoebe’s song.   I watched the busy phoebe for a long time from my rock, all but forgetting my quest for trout. In those moments, my world became—not smaller, per se—but simpler: The phoebe singing to my east, the river rushing by in front of me, the warmth radiating from the rock wall behind me, my son casting his line over the glittering current to my west. I watched until my heart rate slowed, until I felt I had enough space from the chase that I could conceive of re-rigging my rod and casting once again. But this time, with no expectation. Just for practice. Just for fun.   As a beginner angler, I often find myself painfully overwhelmed by fly-selection. But this time I felt myself as if standing in a place that time forgot. It is from within this place that I managed to effortlessly rerig my rod with precisely the tippet and fly combination designed for these rough, early-spring conditions. (5x fluorocarbon and a red squirmy worm above a batman prince nymph—in case you were wondering.)   Did it work? Well, yes—in the sense that what I “got” was a reminder of why I fish, or watch birds, or do anything, really.   Mason Jennings might have said it best when he sang, “Be here now, no other place to be.” I don’t do these things for the catch or the capture, but for that feeling—all too rare these days—of time standing still.   For More Birding Fun: 1. See below for species added to our family's 2023 backyard life list. 2. To learn to bird by ear (how I bird while fishing!), download the larkwire app. I bought the Eastern landbird song pack and it was well worth the fee. https://www.larkwire.com/.