Because it looked like the rain was coming in from the south and east, I went over to Whitesbog this morning hoping to avoid the green on the radar and walk in the light blue. It started to drizzle as soon as I got there but the rain never really became more than an annoyance, and I was rewarded with some infrequently recorded birds like the duo of Rusty Blackbirds I saw at the back of Union Pond through the raindrops on my bins.
I was slightly surprised to find a small flock of Pectoral Sandpipers still lingering on Union Pond alongside a little conclave of Killdeer, but sparrows were the family of the day with large numbers of White-throated Sparrows, along with Swamp, Song, Savannah, and Dark-eyed Juncos. It was in the village that I got my first year-bird of the month. I was looking into the brush across from the Garden Bog which was full of the above sparrows. I started Merlin to see if any of the flitting birds was anything different from what I was seeing and heard a ticking sound above me--just as I was saying to myself that that sounds interesting, Purple Finch popped up on the app. The proverbial "calling flyover." It seems to me it used to be easier to find Purple Finch around here--it is, after all the native finch unlike its House Finch relative, but I go great lengths of time between sightings (or hearings). They used to come, occasionally, to our feeders, but it's been years since that's happened, so I'll take the little ticking in the sky and be happy.
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| Franklinia altamaha in autumn |
The Franklinia tree has an interesting story. It was discovered in Georgia around 1765 by the great Philadelphia father-and-son botanists John and William Bartram. William brought back seeds of the tree and eventually was able to propagate the tree in their Philadelphia garden. Over the years he returned for more seeds but on trip could no longer find the stand of trees (which was only found in one, limited location on the Altamaha River) and by the early 1800's the tree was extinct in the wild. Various reasons for its demise in the wild have been put forth, including fire, flood, and overcollection--sound familiar? In any case, all the trees that now grow (at one count there were only around 2000 of them worldwide) are descended from the seeds Bartram collected in the late 18th Century. The name of the tree is derived from Benjamin Franklin who was a great friend of John Bartram. In the summer, in bloom, it is a striking tree with large, cup-like flowers that have creamy petals and with golden-yellow stamens. Interestingly, I almost never see birds in it, and, in the summer, hummingbirds seem to pass it by.
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| Flower |
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| In summer |
Green-winged Teal 4 Fenwick Bogs
Ring-necked Duck 2
Mourning Dove 3
Killdeer 7
Pectoral Sandpiper 6
Great Blue Heron 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
Northern Harrier 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 4
Hairy Woodpecker 1 Heard Village
Northern Flicker 3
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 3
Carolina Chickadee 6
Tufted Titmouse 6
Tree Swallow 6 Over Fenwick Bogs
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Carolina Wren 1
European Starling 1
Northern Mockingbird 1 Heard village
Eastern Bluebird 4
Hermit Thrush 3
American Robin 100
House Finch 5
Purple Finch 1
American Goldfinch 1
Dark-eyed Junco 3
White-throated Sparrow 30
Savannah Sparrow 3
Song Sparrow 10
Swamp Sparrow 3
Rusty Blackbird 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler 6
Northern Cardinal 2
