Wednesday, May 4, 2011

quieter?





Sunday, after the hailstorm on Wednesday, the woods around my home seemed quieter.

Was I imagining it?

Any songbird or nest hit by one of those hailstones could not have survived. Armageddon came quickly. What seemed to be a passing thunderstorm, was something more dramatic. I didn't see a hummingbird at the only surviving feeder for a long time, but then a male, and a short time later, a female stopped by for several long sips.

One bird that did pass through, on its way north, or perhaps to the Smokies where it nests, was a least one
hooded warbler. To me, their song always sounds like someone sneezing, "achoo-achoo- achoo- ACHOO," a common mnemonic is "The red. The red. The red. T-shirt".

Hoodeds nest and forage much lower to the ground than many of the other warblers. They like the belly of the forest, the understory.

2 comments:

ADRIAN said...

Imagining it? I can't say but I was in Mexico when Katrina blasted through Puerto Aventuras and was amazed how mant small birds there were about the following day. Reptiles seemed unaffected. Total devastation.......to me! The flora suffered but fauna survived.

Stephen Lyn Bales said...

Hello again Adrian. You may be correct. My comment was completely subjective. And a man hears what he wants to hear.

I know the flora suffered. It took me two days to clean up around my house but I found no bird bodies, only a few cardinal feathers.