Thrill of victory, agony of defeat in world of birds | News

Aside from state forests, I also seem for flippantly travelled public roadways and one particular of my favorites is Pumpkin Hollow Street in Allegany. I’ll confess that I don’t know significantly about the record of that space but it appears to be very likely that Pumpkin Hollow Street utilised to be the “main” highway in between Allegany and Humphrey right before County Highway 51 — also identified as Chapel Hill Street — was place in. If that’s the case, it provides an intriguing historic viewpoint on the hard work that it took to get from 1 town to the other, especially all through the wintertime months, because it is all uphill for over a mile before dropping down into Humphrey.

The Pumpkin Hollow Street pavement finishes at the Humphrey city line and, from there, it is an progressively steep wander along a solitary-lane, seasonal, constrained-use highway that follows a meandering Five Mile Creek feeder stream through maturing forest and lately logged regions.

The land on equally sides of the road is POSTED but the road alone is properly taken care of except for minor spring washouts, and when there is the occasional 4-wheel-push car or truck or aspect-by-facet car or truck, it’s generally possible to wander to the top devoid of encountering vehicular targeted visitors. On the other hand, in my working experience, drivers really do not hope to come upon walkers and given that there is no shoulder I make guaranteed I get perfectly off the street at the 1st seem of a car or truck.

I include Pumpkin Hollow for the New York Point out Breeding Hen Atlas Task and 1 of the motives that I like birding that street is the insight it gives into songbird migration, distribution and nesting.

In early April when some of our earliest songbirds are starting off to return, I’ll hear 4 or 5 species of birds including robin, tune sparrow, junco, winter season wren and purple finch at the very low stop of the road, but I won’t listen to any birds at the upper finish of the highway, indicating that the early migrants get some of the very best nesting websites at the lower elevations. But due to the fact they get there early, they do so at the risk that a spring snowstorm could wipe them out.

There will be other people of those species arriving afterwards in April when there’s a lot less danger of currently being wiped out by a snowstorm, but because they’re arriving later, they’ll most likely be pushed out of the most appealing habitat at the lower elevations by the individuals that arrived earlier. The outcome is that they might not bring in a mate or nest productively.

Choose, for illustration, the wintertime wren, which is a tiny chook with a big voice and a bubbling song that seems to define spring. The reduce stop of Pumpkin Hollow is great habitat for them due to the fact it is a spruce and pine forest with a soaked understory. The person that I read arrived early and will drive out any other males that arrive later, pushing them farther up the slope into drier and less desirable habitat with less evergreen trees.

Last yr, I heard a few different males together the size of the street and I’m guessing that the a person at the reduced end — which arrived first — nested productively mainly because he stopped singing previously in the summer time than the a single in close proximity to the leading and typically talking, males sing fewer when they have youthful in the nest so as to prevent attracting predators.

One more instance is the Baltimore oriole. Last yr, there was a male oriole at the pretty top of Pumpkin Hollow in habitat that — from what I could notify — was not pretty ideal for that species and I’m guessing that he arrived comparatively late in the spring. All the most effective web sites were being now taken so he took what was left and, although he sang all summer time prolonged, I never ever noticed any evidence that he captivated a mate or nested successfully.

Admittedly, there are other variables at get the job done, like predation and habitat disturbance, but in standard Pumpkin Hollow is a great instance of an open classroom for researching songbird migration and distribution in Cattaraugus County in April.

But May possibly is when the action actually starts to decide on up when songbirds that expend our winter season in the tropics get started pouring back again into our region. In preceding yrs I have witnessed or heard blue-headed vireo, red-eyed vireo, yellow-rumped warbler, black-throated inexperienced warbler, black-throated blue warbler, mourning warbler, pine warbler, scarlet tanager, rose-breasted grosbeak, Eastern wood pewee and minimum flycatcher among many others together the highway.

The mourning warbler and the Eastern wooden pewee depict the so-identified as “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” as Jim McKay employed to say on TV’s “Wide Environment of Sports activities.” After observing and listening to the mourning warbler I invested quite a few hours above numerous times swatting at swarms of black flies when wanting for any proof that would allow me to go the hen from a “possible breeder” to a “confirmed breeder” with out any success. If that hen did entice a feminine and did nest correctly, he was not telling.

Meanwhile, the thrill of victory came when I just occurred to get into my car or truck at the conclude of a long and unproductive walk and set down the window before hearing a singing Japanese wood pewee. He sang two times and as I grabbed my camera he landed on a perch at eye degree future to my auto, providing me a number of good shots. He was carrying food in his beak, which means that he had youthful birds in the nest for the reason that, usually speaking, an adult hen doesn’t have foodstuff for its personal usage in its beak — preferring to consume it wherever it finds it. So carrying food meant it was a verified breeder.

Nevertheless, black flies and all — and there are clouds of them on Pumpkin Hollow Road in May perhaps — there is no place I’d relatively be nor something I’d rather be undertaking than spending time outdoors in Cattaraugus County at that time of the calendar year.

(Jeffrey Reed writes a monthly birding column for the Olean Moments Herald. Visitors with thoughts or reviews can contact him at 557-2327 or e mail him at jeffreed58@gmail.com.)