Listen to the Trees

The trees have been very noisy of late, seeing as how it's fall migration. A hermit thrush hung out in the backyard one Saturday a couple of weeks ago, and a red-tailed hawk circled over our heads as we walked home from the subway the next day. I hope their paths didn't cross.

Yesterday there was a downy woodpecker hard at work in the Silver Maple.



And recently we've had scores of rusty blackbirds in both trees. I wonder if they are called rusty blackbirds because they sound so much like rusty hinges. There were so many, we captured 4 and 20 and baked them in a pie.

Actually, these four are clothespins from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Neat, huh?