Bird sightings on the internet are keeping cyberspace hot.  Most of the “expected” migrants have arrived and immediately set up housekeeping.  Even our mundane Oklahoma City habitat has been a little interesting lately.

After hearing about Nancy’s House Wren, I kept hoping that maybe one day one would claim our little wren house out in the garden.  Wishing must work.  In a few days I went out to harvest some green onions and a little House Wren hopped up out of the blackberry bushes and started singing to me!   

For the next three weeks, that little male sang and sang and sang, then sang again.  He gathered small sticks and arranged them adequately in the wren house.  Then he sang and sang and sang.  The first sound I heard when the alarm went off was the bubbly, exuberant song of that relentless songster. 

One morning, as I was listening to him sing, I heard a different sound coming from the vicinity of the wren house.  I peeked out the bathroom window and saw a second little brown wren!  The different sound could be defined as a kind of “purring” sound.  All of that singing had finally paid off!   The visitor must have been a lady at last! 

They are going in and out of the wren house and seem to be well on the road to “happily ever after.”  I really hope they stay in our yard and have the opportunity to raise an entire happy  family of little brown singers.

Another unexpected visitor appeared in our OKC back yard during the first week in May.  I had gone out in the garden near the wren house and was quite pleasantly surprised to find a male Common Yellowthroat hopping around the blackberries!  Brian also spotted Nashville Warbler that had just popped up out of the bird bath and was preening.   

Our Northern Oriole is back and the first evening I found him, he launched himself out of our neighbor’s hackberry tree, aiming for the airspace a few feet above my head!  That brilliant flash of yellow nearly made me whiplash myself!  What a treat!  Now his whistling song can be heard many times during the day. 

Our robins have babies to feed and the martins are going about the business of nest building.  Starlings continue to be a nuisance.  One of the most destructive things they do is snip off any tender vegetable plant I set out in the garden.  I’ve watched them do it, so it can’t be blamed on any bunnies.  The problem has been resolved by encasing everything in small wire cages.  They won’t fly down into those to pick off the tops from my tomatoes and pepper plants. It’s a toss-up as to which species is more determined – me or those pesky Starlings! 

Another afternoon I looked out the back door to see a Mockingbird taking a much-appreciated shower in the oscillating sprinkler I had going at the edge of the garden.  That bird was not just taking a shower, it was absorbing it!  It wriggled and squirmed and preened everywhere imaginable that its beak could reach, then repeated the process more than once.  It was as if it just couldn’t reach every needy feather that needed scrubbing. 

On April 14, Brian saw a Swainson’s Hawk drop a Rock Pigeon from its talons onto the roadside on his way to work. And on April 19, Brian saw a Screech Owl fly across the street at SE 59^th and Sooner Road.  In hot pursuit were Starlings!   

A Perfect Spring Experience
By Patti Muzny 

In Oklahoma, there are not many days that one might christen “perfect,” and when they do happen, it’s during the work week.  Sometimes the weekend nature gods smile and we get a beautiful day or two on a weekend.  The weekend of April 29-30, was (in my opinion) one such weekend. Much needed beneficial rain fell on Friday and on Saturday, causing nearly everything to celebrate.  The Muznys, with granddaughter Sydney in tow, left OKC just as the rain ended and went to toward Byars.   

Water was standing in ditches and some of the roadside ponds had a little water in them.  Our own pond had come up a few inches, but most of the 2+ inches of rain must have soaked in, rather than put water in ponds.  Lots of creatures were singing at around 3:00 PM.  Cardinals, Titmice, Carolina and Bewick’s Wrens and Kentucky Warblers were very enthusiastic about the day.   

Sydney (age 7.5) and I took a hike along the creek to see what was stirring.  Along the trails, we snipped off tender tips of greenbrier and snacked a little, taking care to check each tip for unwanted wriggly protein.  It was not particularly productive to try to sneak up on much of anything other than an oblivious armadillo when accompanied by a seven year-old who reminds me of a dragonfly!  They’re beautiful, but they dart from place to place and don’t hold still very long. 

One oblivious armadillo caught our scent and we didn’t get too close, but the second one was not so lucky.  We got within 10 feet and then Sydney chased it into the woods.   

My favorite sleeping spot on the porch was to be shared this weekend.  Fortunately, she played hard and about three minutes after curling up against my back, the little dragonfly folded her wings and was fast asleep.  The Chuck-will’s Widows were calling and fireflies flew against the screens.  The Great-horned Owls hooted softly in the distance.  Sometime in the wee hours, I was awakened by a hissing screech noise.  The culprit was in flight, not running.  I suspect either a Great-horned or Barn Owl.   

The pre-dawn time was quite a chorus.  I think everything with a voice was trying it out.  The “Porch Phoebe” is still feeding babies and it was calling; the Chuck-wills were winding down and the Barred and Great-horned Owls were dueling.  Bluebirds, Summer Tanagers, wrens, Cardinals, Titmice, Chickadees, Nuthatches, woodpeckers, Crows, coyotes...they all got into the act.  The morning was totally windless, so it was easy to hear the songs that wrapped our cabin in such a delightful chorus.  Somewhere nearby Sam heard the gobble of a Wild Turkey. 

Brian and I took a morning hike while Sydney followed her Grandpa around for a while.  We walked up on a scruffy-looking coyote as it walked along one of our hiking trails.  A Blue Grosbeak was proclaiming his territory from high in one of the oak trees, and in the distance a Field Sparrow brought forth his bouncing ball song.  Along the fence line a Lark Sparrow was singing, and the resident Mockingbird was singing above a thicket of multiflora rose bushes.  The Chipping Sparrows seemed to be everywhere. 

In front of the cabin, a pair of Chickadees has been feeding their hungry brood in the nest box and behind the cabin in another box is a family of Bewick’s Wrens.  The little male will fly into the box with a morsel, stuff the baby, fly back out, perch a few seconds and burst forth in song, then forage again, and fly back to the box.  He does this over and over again.   

Later in the afternoon I watched a flock of Cedar Waxwings exhibit a behavior I had not seen before.  A pair would sit side-by-side and feed each other.  They also seemed to be flycatching insects out of the air.  I had found a large hatch of flying ants, too.  The ground was covered with them.  As I watched, they seemed to be warming up on the ground in patches of sunlight.  After a few minutes, they would take flight and leave the security of the woods for the pasture.  As soon as they began to fly, our first flock of migrating Eastern Kingbirds had easy pickings.  Both the kingbirds and the waxwings were flying out and appearing to catch the flying ants.  The sun shone through the bright yellow of the waxwings’ tails and the bright white band of the kingbirds’ tails.  Against a cool blue sky, it was a colorful moment.