Monday August 10: One Coopers chick perched in the dead tree in the am (before 7) and again about noon before the storm a couple of hours later.
Tuesday August 11: No Coopers, & none today either.
So I think it's safe to say that August 10 was the last day in 2015 before dispersal. This is consistent with 2013 when August 8 was the last day for Coopers. (But not 2014 in which the birds were very late & stayed around through fall migration.)
Number of fledglings: 2012 (first year) 4; 2013--4; 2014--2; 2015--2. I don't know of any local nests in 2012 or 2013, but there was one near Roncesvales last year. There may be another in High Park this year (no one's reported anything for High Park on eBird for a month). Brood size is related to bird density, according to the internet (
http://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordb ... lutch.html), & if the internet says so who am I to disbelieve it? So with the spread of Coopers maybe fledgling groups of 4 are history in Lithuania. Or maybe it was just a difficult spring. Next year...
The storm on the long weekend took down the top of the dead elm. That snag was decked in vines, mainly Virginia creeper but also some grape, I think river grape, & the fall migrants loved it. So I don't expect I'll see quite so many of them this year--sigh.
The scarlet bee balm did not have a great year, although it is in bloom, but the cardinal flower is blooming and so is the spotted touch-me-not. So there should be hummingbirds...
The swamp milkweed (Aesclepias incarnata) and Joe-Pye-weed are both blooming & attracting unidentified Hymenoptera species and monarch butterflies. Yesterday a monarch went to nectar at the milkweed & got chased off by a bee or wasp. Saw the same thing happen earlier in the year in Algonquin Park at a hummingbird feeder--the bee or wasp stayed put at the feeder & drove off the hummingbird. And they say hummingbirds are pugnacious...
I saw two species of dragonfly in the yard yesterday, and someone's been eating the violet leaves. I should switch to entomology.
