I visited Soldier's Delight again this morning. Keith's Summer Tanager
was still there singing and sitting in plain view at eye-level on the
red trail by the split from the orange and yellow trails. It must be
very lonely. There were echoes of "Una furtiva lagrima" in its song.
There is no sign of a female or even another male around. Perhaps this
sad scenario is why I was seized with great fits of nose-blowing for
the next hour.
The migrant warblers were pretty much gone. They were replaced by two
apparent difficult-to-ID species:
1) A Gray-cheeked Thrush. Identified with reasonable confidence by
having little or no eye-ring, a uniform gray-brown color throughout
the upper parts with no hint of red on or near the tail, a general
long and large appearance, and fairly heavy spots. Basically, it
lacked important characteristics of other species - not a very
satisfying way to make an ID. It did not make a single sound. (As for
gray-cheeks? About as gray as a Red-bellied Woodpecker's belly is
red.) I saw it where the orange trail has a T-intersection by some
houses.
2) A Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. I heard a bird constantly singing
"perwee" or "tuwee" like a short Pewee song. I did not hear any other
sounds that I associate with common species. Then, I finally got a
very quick look at what appeared to be a very yellow Empidonax
flycatcher. It was almost on the ground, and never sounded higher than
eye-level. I didn't see or hear any obvious Pewee nearby. This was by
post #2 on the red trail, near the Summer Tanager area.
I'm elaborating because I wonder how likely it is that a real Pewee
would make short "perwee" sounds. You tend to hear Pewees, or
sound-alikes, a lot more than see them.
Steve Sanford
Randallstown MD (Balto Co)
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