BANGOR DAILY NEWS • July 5, 2024
In the bird world, there’s a sharp transition between spring and summer, between baby-making and child-rearing. It’s hard to see, but easy to hear. Often, it’s what you don’t hear that matters, like when the chickadees go silent or a warbler stops singing. Roughly two dozen warbler species nest in Maine. Each has its own timetable for when it sings and when it doesn’t. In early summer, songbirds sometimes ignore my pishing sounds. Just one week later, they may charge right in to see what the pishing threat is all about. How they react is often a clue to where they are in the breeding cycle. How did I miss this drama for so many years? ~ Bob Duchesne