The wood-pewee and summer’s swan song

 

August can be a difficult time for birdwatchers. The silence of the forest tells them that the end is near, as most species of songbirds will start their journeys south by month’s end or early-September. On the other side of that mass migration, we’re left with the familiar and friendly visitors to our feeders until the others return, some six or seven months later. So, we’re in the last hurrah of the seasons of life that we look forward to all throughout our winters.

A gradual silence falls over the woodlands during the dog days of summer. The birds pipe down because mating, nesting, and caring are done; staking out territories is no longer a thing as species kindly flock up; and they go silent so as not to bring attention to themselves as they molt in advance of migration – slower of flight during that period of change, they could be an easier catch for predators.

It gets to a point in late-August that some days it seems as if the only birds one hears are squawking corvids like crows and blue jays. Luckily, that silence is broken by the delightful, eastern wood-pewee.

If you’ve visited a woodland, park, or cemetery -- or maybe you have some big trees in your yard – you’ve no doubt heard this little sprite singing from the tree tops.

Their call is a plaintive, high-pitched pee-a-wee or pee-wee (hence the name). These songs may be heard as early as late May in Western New York but typically aren’t heard in earnest until July, and they stick with us through the summer. It’s a tune heard all day, too, from the earliest light of the morning to the hottest overhead sun to the twilight following sunset. Quite often, you will hear the male making that call over and over.

The wood-pewee is a bird that loves to be heard. It can get away with that because it’s a bird hardly seen. These birds live, feed, and nest in the lower and middle canopies of mature trees. Many of their nests are 50 to 70 feet off the ground. From there they fly into openings or underneath the canopy to capture flying insects – which is why they are from the flycatcher family, the same group of birds as phoebes and kingbirds.

If you do see a pewee, you might be unimpressed by its hues. Its coat features a dull, olive-grey back, a dusty white belly, and two subtle, whitish wing bars. Once you get past that plainness, you’ll find the bird to cute. It might be just six inches in length and its big black eyes seem to tell a story or convey inquisitiveness.

I’ve been very luck to see one close-up for each of the past three summers. The bird is smart enough to know that when I mow my lawn I’m kicking up all sorts of insect life. It will come down from the tree tops and follow me around the yard, even as far as 200 feet away from his territory. He stays close to the mower to get his dinner and if I stop mowing to admire him he stops, too, patiently waiting for me to get moving again. He adds some mirth and companionship to an otherwise tedious chore.

I’ve often seen this behavior of birds following cutting equipment in local farmlands. During and after a cutting of hay, red-tailed hawks, vultures, and eagles make themselves known as they search for voles and carrion. But, this is the first songbird that I’ve ever encountered that religiously follows a lawnmower.

Enjoy the song of the wood-pewee while you can. Within the next three weeks they will join their feathered friends on their journeys southward. But, unfortunately, in the long-term, the sound might be just as fleeting. Despite the maturation of forests, which gives them more canopies from which to choose, their population has dropped by 48% over the past sixty years.

The decline is concerning. Hopefully the bleeding stops and a rebound comes, because, to me, the eastern wood pewee is one of the quintessential sounds of summer – just as much as fireworks on the Fourth of July or the band organ music at the carousel park.