Shore Birds

Knowing Audubon wrote that he felt incomplete if he didn't kill 100 birds a day is shocking enough. That he was able to do it is even more of a wonder, first for the question of how (I assume he shot them down), and second---where did he find them? That was the 19th century. It's a sad commentary on the pollution and habitat destruction of the intervening generations that I can't, in the 21st century, imagine such an abundance of any one species, unless in a migrating group. I was on the porch or dock almost all day today and did not come close to seeing 100 birds. Those I remember are pelicans, seagulls, hawks, a blue jay, that purple woodpecker, and a cute tufted titmouse that kept pecking and flapping at my car's side view mirror. I'm surprised that I see and hear many fewer birds here than at home. Different kinds, but fewer in number. Aside from the shorebirds over the water, only the woodpeckers and jays in the trees between backporch and bay. Where are the swallows of last year?

Question: Who says "ta whittle weeet?" One loner I hear only at night, including the night I arrived. An owl of some kind? That particular voice not described in PFG, but it sounds owl-like. And in the daytime, somebody I can't see sounds like a loud cat meowing. Only one. dkm

Life Supporting Dead Tree

A woodpecker like the one who comes every morning to the dead live oak I cannot find in the birdbooks. It has a dark red head, not bright red, and a fully black body with no white that I can see. Almost looks purple against the light over the bay. By its characteristic movements, its shape and beak, and its tap tap tapping on the tree trunk, it is definitely of the family woodpecker, but I've never seen one so dark---so lacking in white---so marooon of head. Is it a crossbreed? Does that happen in bird world?

Another wonder of the dead live oak: swarming bees all day every day outside a knot hole in the tree. They look like the same kind of bees that swarm around cultivated bee hives. Honey bees in their natural raw, a phenomenon I've seen only in books and movies before this week. What a gift, this tree. dkm