I am not what you might call an avid bird-watcher, so spare yourselves the effort of picturing yours truly prowling about the pine forests, attired in khaki shirt, cargo pants and solar topee, with a pair of binoculars hanging around my neck, a pencil behind my ear, and my hands, sweaty with the excitement of the chase, clasping a spiral notebook. I am not that man.
Still, I do possess a modicum of interest in our feathered friends, and have always been somewhat keen on trying to identify birds by their song (or calls or hoots, as the case may be). A few nights this past week, when I took Daisy, the official dog of Paco Enterprises, into the front yard for her evening constitutional, I heard a couple of birds calling to one another from a stand of pines on the other side of a field that faces our house. At first, I imagined that they were whippoorwills, but then, quickly recollecting that I wasn't, in fact, sure I had ever heard a whippoorwill, I went to the internet and discovered, after a few minutes on YouTube among audios of whippoorwill recordings, that I was on the wrong track. I feared that I was at the beginning of a long journey of discovery, but, after about 15 minutes, finally got the bird...that is to say, I uncovered the identity of the mystery bird.
It turns out to be something called a chuck-will's-widow. It is, like the whippoorwill, a member of the nightjar family, and has a distinctive call...
Case closed. Call your next case.
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Nice. I like birds, and have always tried to identify which bird makes which sound. Never heard that one before, though I do know what whippoorwills sound like. When I was a child in Texas, my cousins and I would lure bobwhites close because it's easy to mimic their call.
ReplyDeleteBobwhites are among my favorites. Used to hear them a lot at my grandmother's place in the country.
ReplyDeleteThis area is great for people who are really into bird-watching. In addition to the usual crowd - robins and cardinals and finches - there are all kinds of water fowl (herons, ibises, etc.). And say what you will about turkey buzzards, they look very elegant gliding in the sky above the long-leaf pines.
Not whippoorwills, but psychopomps. Keep away from them.
ReplyDeleteAnd from frogs.
We've got frogs, alright. The area has numerous ponds, and you can hear the throaty honk of the bullfrogs. And lots of turtles, too, floating near the surface of the water, their snoots sticking up like submarine periscopes. I've seen deer tracks in the field across the street, so I'll have to remember to spray the roses with deer repellent. No alligator sightings, yet, although with all the warning signs in the parks you'd think that mobs of them would practically be milling around in the street.
ReplyDeleteWhat a coincidence; it's almost like it's saying its own name, "chuck-will's-widow".
ReplyDeleteOver here frogs (and rats) bring snakes.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching Lure of the Wilderness (which has lots of bird noises) I know you have to watch out for Cotton Mouths:
https://archive.org/details/LureOfTheWilderness1952
I know you have to watch out for Cotton Mouths
ReplyDeleteAnd Copperheads, Paco. My brother in Raleigh learned that the hard way. He was pulling weeds in the landscaping in front of his house, when a Copperhead apparently took exception to his being there. His wife had to rush him to the emergency room for treatment. His hand and arm didn't look too good for several days, but fortunately no long term damage.
I have listened to the song of this bird every spring evening for 18 years and it is only now that I learn, from your post, that it is not a wippoorwill as I always thought.
ReplyDeleteBucky
Bucky: Well, same family.
ReplyDeleteR-man: I feel sure I must have told this story before, but I once mistook a copperhead's tail for a tree root when I was out in the woods, climbing a steep hill, reaching for something on which to get a purchase, the better able to move up the steep grade. As soon as I grabbed it, the "root" started writhing wildly. I withdrew, as they say, in disorder.
I'd have done the same thing. Snakes don't bother me a lot if I see'em first, from a comfortable distance. But I don't like'em sneaking up on me.
ReplyDelete