A sure sign of the downside of summer, at least for birding, is the quiet you hear these days. Gone are most of the mating and territorial songs offered by our local nesting species. Courtship and mating are done, with the exception of a few species that nest second or even third times in a season. The House Wren in our backyard, for instance, is ready to go again, his song coming from our yard’s brushy edges on a daily basis. Eastern Bluebirds, too, are into second nestings in many instances. Other species are feeding young birds. Very soon some of them will begin meandering south, post-breeding migration not driven by the breeding imperative that governs spring. Those species that nested north of us will begin appearing in metro yards and parks.  I did find one lustily singing bird this past weekend, a Warbling Vireo that perched in some neighborhood willows and sang as if it was May. Here’s a photo of that bird. Â

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 8:39 am and is filed under Backyard birding, Bird biology, Bird migration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.