It’s the end of summer, which is always really hard to believe as the year went so quickly. The Fall bird migration is underway, or so I suppose but we haven’t had many birds pass through. A few Yellow Warblers, a Norther Waterthrush, and a few Palm Warblers. Since the Palm Warblers are here during the fall and winter months, they fit more into the “winter residents” category for me. So there haven’t been a lot of new species but maybe things will pick up in October.
We had so few birds here this summer (probably because of drought conditions) that I got into dragonflies, damselflies, and other creatures in general. I’m not sure what I’ll be photographing this winter but there is sure to be something (at least I hope so).
On the bright side, I found a family or at least a small group of four otters still sliding around what little water remains in the swamp. I was thrilled to see them. They are so playful and just darn cute.
They love to tease the dogs and when the dogs swim out to where the otter is, the otter will dive down and come up in a new location to wait for the dog to see it. The otters kept teasing the dogs until the dogs gave up and swam back to shore, completely frustrated.
Our backyard pond had a few dragonflies at the shallow end and this pair of Carolina Saddlebag dragonflies took advantage of it to deposit a few eggs. Unfortunately, there are small fish in the pond who may end up eating the dragonfly eggs and nymphs but I’m hoping a few still survive in the shallows.
We’re not on the coast (we at least 60 miles inland) so everyone was surprised when I reported observations of Needham’s Skimmer here. Not only are they here, but they are breeding along the runs (streams) in the swamp cutover. So that was a really nice surprise and a fun thing to observe this summer. Since the drought made most of the runs fairly shallow, the dragonflies took advantage of it and I saw all kinds along the cutovers both in the swamp woods proper and in the cutover areas which are more shrubby, brushy, open for the moment.
There are still some birds, though. We do have White-eyed Vireos and Common Yellowthroats both around the yard and in the cutover. There were a good many Blue Grosbeaks and Indigo Buntings as well. So it wasn’t that we didn’t have any birds at all–we just didn’t have the variety of warblers that I usually see in the woods.
What surprised me was the number of very young birds I observed in September, particularly White-eyed Vireos and Common Yellowthroats. I believe there may have been early season nest failures which led to renesting attempts later, with the result being more young birds were visible in late August and early September. But many of the immature birds that I saw are ones which remain here during the winter so they may do all right despite being a little young for the time of the year.
Last week I even saw several Common Yellowthroats which still had quite a bit of down left on them, so they weren’t that long out of the nest. But they stay here year round and we certainly have plenty of insects so they should do fine (assuming that nothing gets them first).
There was even an immature Wood Thrush in our woods–there were still feathers erupting on the shoulders–but there is enough time for the feathers to fully form before it needs to fly south. Being a little late in migration may actually be to its advantage since it may avoid some of the storms that haunt the southern states during the hurricane season. We don’t get really cold weather for a few more months so there are still insects around. For once, time is on this bird’s side.
Well, here’s to hoping that we get more birds over the next few weeks and that the migratory birds that are still here get off to a good start flying south.
