It’s the end of June, which means fledging time for many birds’ second broods.  The nesting season is already drawing to a close, it seems.  Walking through the woods and fields is a game of hot and cold, with parent birds becoming increasingly more agitated as I wander by their hidden young.

I was about to step onto the caboose trail at my usual entry point before coming face to face with a little bob-tailed Robin sitting low in a bush.  I backed off quickly enough to receive only a mild scolding from the adults.  Further along, a young Oriole flushed from the lilacs.  The little fellow made it up high into a nearby maple, safe and sound, but the mother continued to shout expletives at me until I departed.

A Savannah Sparrow sang his soft tune of sweet, sweet lazy breee-zeeey and chipped a warning in response to the zeep of his nearby young.  Less subtle was the male Bobolink, who leapt up from the fencerow with a forceful, percussive cry like the strike of a tambourine.  Two females followed for backup, though they soon lost interest and left to tend to the nearby young.  The male continued to leap from branch to branch, tree to tree, flicking and chattering, before abruptly ending the whole performance and winging off into the fields.

The Piping Plovers are back at Sauble Beach, and I stopped in to visit them this morning (just hours before the first of the chicks would hatch, as it turned out).  The nest was completely obscured by tall grass, but the male was foraging down the beach and remained quite cooperative.  I followed him at a distance for awhile, then returned to the nesting enclosure where a volunteer was on duty.  The male winged his way up the beach behind me, lingering at the shore.  A heavy fog rolled in, nearly obscuring the water, and under cover the little bird approached the nest.  I didn’t even notice the switchover — suddenly he was gone, and just as suddenly the female appeared before us.  She preened nonchalantly for a few minutes, then flew past the yellow tape and vanished into the mist.