Earlier than usual on Thursday morning I went out on the porch with my coffee before the predicted humidity kicked in. But there wasn’t much bird activity except for three ruby-throated hummingbirds chasing each other and a flock of cedar waxwings in a wild cherry tree.
A few days earlier it had also been hot and humid but I didn’t notice the uncomfortable weather as I walked on the pathway at Housenick Park in Bethlehem Township around noon. Out in the middle of a big field there, Linda Freedman found a rare bird, a Say’s phoebe, hawking insects from atop tractor equipment.
Around here many people are familiar with the black and white eastern phoebe that sometimes builds its nest under porch eaves. But a Say’s phoebe is gray with a rusty belly and breeds in the western part of the country.
As always happens when a rare bird is found, word gets out and birders go to look at it. Unfortunately, though, this phoebe was only there for one day and only a handful of people got to see it.
The recent hot, humid weather has many different fungi growing in lawns or under trees. David told me about a patch of yellow ones that turned out to be Suillus americanus, commonly called chicken fat or slippery jack mushrooms because they’re slimy and yellow. They grow under white pine trees, and if you look closely at one you’ll see pores, not gills, under the caps, red streaks on the caps, and reddish brown speckles on the stems.
David often tells me about interesting things he sees while working in the fields. Recently as he was mowing he saw several praying mantids, a mink, and many monarch butterflies.
Monarchs have been steadily moving through the Northeast, and some high mountaintop hawkwatch sites have seen big numbers. On Sept. 14 at Waggoner’s Gap above Carlisle, Pennsylvania, they tallied 1,709 monarchs.
We’re now at the time of year when a lot of fruit that animals and birds feed on during the cold months is ripening. Different colored crabapples, both big and small, are now readily visible, and native fringe trees are covered with juicy bluish/purple berries.
Dogwoods are also now showing their fruit. On our native flowering dogwoods it’s red, small, and clustered together. But introduced Korean or Kousa dogwood trees produce a solitary and big 1-inch round red fruit that animals and birds eat even though it’s not native.
At the edge of our yard where these dogwoods grow, there’s an open grassy area, and one day when I went out to look at them, three eastern cottontail rabbits were feeding nearby. Every time I’m in our fields, even if I don’t see any other animals, I always see rabbits.
The night before I wrote this column I watched a nature show about rabbits, and found out things I didn’t know. I wasn’t aware that the native New England cottontail population has declined to a danger point due to habitat loss. And I never before saw a swamp rabbit swimming.
But I knew nothing about European Continental giant rabbits. And sadly the world record holder Darius, who measured 4 feet, 4 inches long, was stolen from his English home in April of 2021.
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September 18, 2021 at 06:00PM
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A rare local sighting of a bird that breeds in the western U.S. | Lehigh Valley Nature Watch - lehighvalleylive.com
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