This is mostly commetnary on end of the breeding season bird song activity.
Bob Duschane mentioned in his post how bird song activity has just about stopped in northern Maine. That is true after the early morning hours. However, for those seeking an end-of-the-breeding season final infusion of warbler, flycatcher, sparrow, and songs from other vociferous species, don't give up on song activity for the first few hours after sunrise when the weather is cool and dry! Based on many breeding seasons of trying to squeeze in late season surveys, bird song activity can be fair to good under cool and dry weather conditions until the end of the month, more or less. I speak primarily for boreal forest areas, especially along the eastern Maine coast where it is often cool and inland areas hot.
I was recording bird song activity three times fairly early in the morning over the last week and many species were still singing until the 7:00 to 7:30 am range. By contrast, I was out later in the day several times early last week and thought Empidomax flycatchers and a few other species had completely quieted down, other than giving call notes. However, I encountered many willow and alder flycatchers singing in the Belgrade Lakes area as well as yellow warblers, chestnut-sideds, black-and-whites, American redstarts, magnolias (as Bob noted), pine warblers, common yellowthroats, northern parulas, and black-throated greens, I could not escape warbling vireos.
Friday a week ago (certainly much earlier in the month bird song wise), warblers were singing late into of the morning under fairly cool dry conditions in a boreal forest area on the Telephone Road in Indian Township where I picked up 19 species on 7 point counts. I missed Canada warblers, whose song activity often drops off late during the second week of July in eastern Maine. Cape Mays, bay-breasteds, blackburnians, and northern waterthrushes were still singing at multiple locations. To give an example of the acute impact of time of the morning this time of year, I electronically recorded the songs of 13 warbler species on an early morning point count along Rt 1 in Indian Township and returned about 3 hrs later after temps and humidity increased and encountered only four vocalizing. Golden-crowned kinglets were scarce all morning, giving only quiet call notes.
As Bob noted, olive-sided flycatchers were still conspicuous although giving mostly 'pip pip pip' call notes. About half of the resident Nashville warblers were still singing. I heard one Lincoln's sparrow give a full song rendition. It was interesting, I recorded the vocalization of three sets of boreal chickadees as they gave one or two brief notes, which I would have missed if I was not listening to the recordings through headphones with the sound turned up. As everyone knows, boreal chickadees can be very cryptic, especially when mixed with the more boisterous black-caps. Hermit thrushes, winter wrens, white-throated sparrows and Swainson's thrush song activity was still going at a moderate rate early in the day. All of the thrushes families gave lots of contact notes. Veerys were doing the same this week.
Get out there early! You may be rewarded with some bird songs and less road noise. In terms of weather, it does not look promising for the next couple of days.
Happy birding!
Norm from Augusta
Norman Famous, Wetlands and Wildlife Ecologist
513 Eight Rod Road
Augusta, ME 04330
(207) 623 6072
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