14 TL HOE AU DU Bro Nt SB ULE eae 
were singing at once, and many cardinals. The song of the cardinals down 
here seemed much louder and more varied than up north, and it may be 
because of the competition. I caught the flash of orange when I saw two 
redstarts chasing each other through the silver maples. I walked onto the 
bridge and scared some sort of small olive-colored lizard with brilliant 
red on throat and jaw line. Looking over the railing onto the muddy river, 
I saw a flash of yellow in a pile of driftwood and identified my first pro- 
thonotary warbler. I had a good look at it as it hopped about and took 
a dainty bath. Its yellow was the clearness of a dandelion with no hint of 
orange. When it fiew up from its bath into a tree and fluffed itself, I could 
see that the primaries and tail feathers were narrowly edged with white 
or light gray. Before I left the spot another similarly colored prothonotary 
appeared for a moment. 
Up onto a dead branch over the river flew a small bird and by the yel- 
low forehead and underparts and double wing bars I knew I was seeing 
a blue-winged warbler. Another small bird was singing loudly and clearly 
in the undergrowth, and although I caught momentary glimpses of it, I 
could not identify it. After crossing the river I started up the road when 
a yellow-breasted chat flew up from the brush onto a wire and “sang.” 
Its singing was a mixture of noises. One was a harsh, rapid chat-chat- 
chat; another a soft, low whistle all on one note; and another sounded 
like a short, sharp blast from a policeman’s whistle. Its flight, too, was 
peculiar. It flew up with dangling legs as Audubon depicts in his paint- 
ing, and it seemed to flap its wings slowly, clapping them together over 
its back. I could hear the soft slap of the wings hitting each other. 
Across the road in the dark of the woods and close at hand came the 
loud, clear yodeling of a bird — something like a blue jay, but much 
louder and more bell-like in quality. I could not see the bird and did not 
identify it until next morning when I traced a similar song to a Carolina 
wren. 
By now it was getting dark. The wood thrushes had stopped singing, 
the cuckoos had finished their short burst of evening song, and the cardi- 
nals were quitting one by one. Some sort of a night heron flew over the 
tree tops, and I stopped to identify the leather plant, a species of clematis 
with thick, leathery purple sepals that enfolded the flower proper. Off in 
the distance I heard the hooting of the barred owl. Its eighth hoot was 
drawn out and deflected downwards like the books say, but otherwise the 
hoots were not in groups of four each, but were something like this: hoo- 
hoo, — hoo-hoo-hoo, — hoo-hoo-o-o-o. It reminded me of the crowing of a 
rooster somewhat, except that the cock-a-doodle-do-o-o was replaced by the 
hoo business. 
The next morning on my way home, the side roads yielded more new 
birds. I saw a cerulean warbler fiy up from the road — blue-gray, white 
belly, wing bars, and heavy dark breast band. Hummingbirds were common 
on the telephone wires, Carolina wrens were heard several times, I saw 
an upland plover, and I stopped to watch the antics of a mockingbird. This 
bird was perched on the top of a dead trunk at the side of a farm yard. 
