Good morning, all. This is Dawn Chorus, where we talk about birds and birdwatching in general, and compare our observations from the past week in particular.
I had hoped to have more to offer to start things out, but my household Internet service went down after a storm Friday night. I'm using backup cell-phone Internet now, so I may not be able to comment as much as I had hoped. We'll see how this goes.
Chimney swift update
My chimney swifts have gone. Flown the proverbial coop, er, chimney. At least I hope they left voluntarily, under their own power. I was out of town for a couple of days last week. The chimney was noisy with chatter when I left. When I came home, all was silent. Although that's the default state of chimneys, in my experience, I had become used to hearing them in there.
From what I had read about chimney swift migration, it seems a bit early for them to depart the area. There's an unfortunate history of bird-eating snakes around my house, so I hope that wasn't the reason for the sudden silence.
For the most part I get along okay with snakes. I’m not sure I like the idea of snakes in my chimney, though. I mean, what's next? Samuel L. Jackson’s voice emanating from my fireplace, cursing the snakes in the #$@%*! chimney?
Other sightings of note
I saw two great egrets in a wetland next to a road that I travel daily. I and other ebird.org users have reported occasional sightings of one egret. This is the first time I can recall two being there together. I live well inland, where the typical long-legged fishing birds are herons. Occasional egret sightings in this area tend to be in the spring or later in the fall. So that was cool.
Then one rainy afternoon this week I saw a group of six immature wild turkeys down the road from my house. I didn't see any adult chaperones, but they seemed well behaved despite the lack of supervision.
That's all I've got for now.
What have you seen this week?