Tag Archives: Birds

Finally! The mystery is solved

Birds, ,

For the past several years I’ve been puzzled by a bird sound I hear in the spring. For a while I thought perhaps it was not a bird, but a delivery truck with squeaky wheels, but why was I only hearing it in the spring and early summer?

Yesterday I caught a glimpse of what I thought might be the bird, high in the tulip poplar that looms over my house. I knew it was a warbler, by its bill and the way it was moving. It was black and white with a bit of yellow.

I ran into the house and Googled warbler images and found the bird on a web site — Myrtle Warbler. Then I tried to locate a myrtle warbler on the Cornell Birding site, only to be redirected to yellow-rumped warbler. Hmm, seems like more names have been changed…

I checked out the sound of the yellow-rumped warbler and yes indeed, that was the sound I’d been hearing.

As much as I love my worn copy of Peterson’s, I have to love the internet for helping me quickly ID the bird.

White-crowned Sparrow

Birds, Memories, ,

Back in 1983 or so, Dean and I spent the summer in Southern California. Dean had a summer job at Rand and we got to stay in various homes in the area — house sitting for other employees of Rand. I’d just begun to “bird” in earnest and California held a wealth of birds I’d not seen before. I especially remember seeing my first California towhee and California thrasher. I also saw dozens of Anna’s hummingbirds and several Bullock’s orioles. I don’t have my California list in front of me, but it goes on and on.

One place we stayed was near the Topanga Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains. The house overlooked the city of Los Angeles, had a courtyard and was full of Real Art. The couple who lived there were high up in the Rand administration and somewhat wealthy. They had a woman who came in and cleaned their house — daily. This woman and I talked a lot — she loved cats (as did I) and she was an avid birder. She invited me to accompany her on an overnight trip to see some of the few remaining California condors in the wild, but I declined for a reason I don’t recall, but could kick myself now.

Her favorite bird was the white-crowned sparrow. In fact her license plate read wht crwn or something like that. She said it meant white-crowned sparrow. I’ve wanted to see one ever since, but never did. Until yesterday morning.

I’d just slipped a half a bagel into the toaster and was waiting for it to pop up so I took a look out the kitchen window. There, hopping among some spilled seed was a large sparrow with black and white stripes on its head. And no yellow spot between its eyes nor white at its throat. My first thought was white-crown! I ran to get the camera and of course it was gone when I got back. I thought I might be seeing one soon since one had been spotted a few streets away according to the Maryland birding email list to which I belong.

I sort of feel like my long ago connection with the birdwatching housekeeper in the Santa Monica Mountains was rekindled for a while when I finally saw the bird she cared enough about to pay extra for vanity tags.