A Murmuration

 

Though perhaps I personally notice it more during the warmer months of the year because I'm out later in the day than I am during the winter, one of Pennypack's avid birdwatchers assures me that (even in the winter) every evening just before sundown, American robins (Turdus migratorius) stream toward a wooded area adjacent to but separate from the Pennypack Preserve.  For 30 minutes as the sun is setting, robins streak across the sky - some singly, some in pairs, and others in large, loose flocks of up to 20 birds.  They are all flying toward the southwest.

The birds seem to materialize out of nowhere in the sky because they are flying relatively high, though I know they are just gathering together from scattered locations where they have been foraging all day.  They are silent - black specks all streaming determinedly in one direction.  It's easy to count hundreds of birds in only a few minutes of watching.  If they were all lumped together, it would be a spectacle, but since they're spread thinly in time and space, they constitute more of an imagined spectacle.  Nevertheless, I'm impressed every time I take a late evening walk.

Last week, I was treated to a real spectacle - only the second one I have ever observed in my life.  Looking over toward the roosting forest, the robins were swirling in the air in an amazing cloud of coordinated flying called a murmuration.  It only lasted a few seconds - alas, too short for my wife Mary, who has weak eyesight, to get a fix on it - but I saw it happen and was transfixed for that moment.  

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The Upper Moreland Historical Association's newsletter Moreland Memories recently republished a recipe for pigeon stew that first appeared in the local newspaper's October 18, 1873 edition.  The recipe concludes with the sentence, "Robins are delicious cooked in the same way."  Is it any wonder Passenger Pigeons are extinct?

 

(The images accompanying this post were borrowed from the Internet) 

 

Submitted by David Robertson

Executive Director     

Late Summer Dusk

At dusk every evening in late summer, hundreds - maybe thousands - of American Robins fly over the Raytharn Farm fields.  Almost all are flying from north to south, though I don't think they are migrating.  I believe they are headed to a communal roost somewhere beyond the horizon.  This astonishing passage can continue for half an hour, with birds materializing out of thin air in the north and then fading into the ether to the south.

Sometimes the birds are clumped together.  Sometimes, they are flying solo.  Usually, though, they are flying in small groups.  All pass silently overhead, earnest to get to their destination before nightfall.  I can watch, mesmerized, for the entire spectacle.  My poor wife Mary, whose eyesight is nowhere as good as mine and who has lots of "floaters," only sees the occasional bird and doesn't understand my open-mouthed astonishment.  

Curiosity overpowering the instinct to flee

Last evening, I went out to see if any Common Nighthawks were migrating over Raytharn Farm.  Mary and I watched nine of them wheeling over the meadows on Sunday evening, August 23, but I haven't seen any since.  Because their migration is a harbinger of autumn, and nighthawks are fascinating birds in their own right, I'm always excited to see them, but was only fortunate once this summer.  Instead, last night I was treated to several does and their fawns browsing in the meadows and...

Heading back to the evening roost

...a small flock of tom turkeys sauntering through the grasses, reluctant to end their day.

Foxtail

This spring, our native grasslands were infested with Canada thistle, a Pennsylvania noxious weed that we are obligated by law to control (and which we want to manage in order to minimize competition with native grasses and desirable forbs).  We hired an herbicide professional to treat our fields, and his chemical magic did the trick - we had no thistle problem this year.  Instead, the fields are now a sea of non-native foxtail (Setaria spp.), an annual grass that is common in disturbed areas.  Once the native grasses regain the upper hand, foxtail will gradually disappear.

Foxtail seedhead

Dusk landscape with fields, forest, and distant towers in Bryn Athyn

The passing of summer does have its moments.

 

Submitted by

David Robertson, Executive Director