April on Yellow Island, it’s not all about the flowers.

April marks the real beginning of a couple things on Yellow: by the end of the month the meadows are covered in flowers with the resulting flood of tourists and the dawn chorus has started in earnest. The last two years we were spoiled with mild winters and early blooms. 2017 has been cool and wet and the flowers are two to three weeks behind last year. The few paintbrushes that were showing color then got desiccated by 60-70 mph winds on April 7.

Taken April 6, the day before the storm

Taken April 8, the day after the storm

Slight recover, April 24

Looking much better 100 feet away and somewhat protected from the wind

Likewise, a few fawn lilies didn’t survive the windy blast. Luckily most did and white pockets of this early spring bloomer can be seen scattered around the island. Shooting star on the north side is also doing quite well even though the first bloom was three weeks later than last year.

Fawn lilies that survived the storm

Shooting stars on the north side of the island not hammered by the wind.

For one species, it has been a spectacular year. I have never seen as much blue-eyed Mary as this spring. It grows low to the ground on the north side out of the wind and was unaffected by the wind storm.

Blue-eyed Mary, April 24, 2017

The birds add something the flowers don’t, song! The dawn chorus begins in mid to late March and builds through April into May. American robins are one of the first species to sing in the spring followed by the sparrows, song and white-crowned. Spotted towhee should also be included here.  Next up would be the warblers, orange and yellow-rumped (Audubon’s). Species arriving mid to late April include house wren and American goldfinch. Olive-sided flycatcher doesn’t arrive until mid to late May. Of course some bird species are vocal but far from melodious. I put Canada geese, northwest crows, glaucous-winged gulls and even black oystercatchers in this category. When recording it’s hard to avoid these more raucous birds. The following recordings are all from late April. The first is from 2004, the next from 2005 and finally 2017. They are several days apart in the calendar year plus at slightly different times in the morning so this would not be good for a scientific comparison. Yet it is still interesting how different the three recordings are. How many species can you pick out?

https://soundcloud.com/user-444804177/sets/dawn-chorus-comparison-42604-4222005-and-4202017
 

The 2004 list includes in rough order of appearance: white-crowned sparrow, spotted towhee northwest crow, house wren, and Canada goose.

The 2005 list has: song sparrow, northwest crow, spotted towhee, glaucous-winged gull, and black oystercatcher.

This year’s list includes: Canada goose, white-crowned sparrow, Bewick’s wren, black oystercatcher, spotted towhee, American goldfinch, and rufous hummingbird.

Let me know if your hear other species I should add to the list. I must admit there are songs included here that I don’t know.😉 

Finally, if you don't care about names but just like listening to birds, here's ten minutes of song form 4/24/17. It fades in and out as birds move between their singing perches, but ends with a bang!

https://soundcloud.com/user-444804177/dawn-chorus-170424-0730