David – I don’t know if cherry resin has any cultural uses or not. Good question.

Getting rid of magazines is tough. I tend to err on the side of caution, and not subscribe to too many things in the first place.

My printer’s actually been kaput for a couple of years, the stuff I’ve been pruning goes back ten and fifteen years, even some bits from high school. It occurs to me that in the last month or so I’ve probably discarded the mass of a small tree! Largely in the form of statements and other automatic mailings, but I did dump multi-year collections of several magazines.

We don’t keep the baltimore’s! It’s very unusual to see them for more than a day. Orchards yes, they nest by our house and wake us in the morning. Hm. I just haven’t really noticed the mouth on the baltimore, only that it’s broad and different. It’s also the time I see a Rose Breasted Grosbeak or two so I listening for them and see an oriole. That’s how it is right now; listening for one thing and finding another. I think I saw a very unusual blue grossbeak. In the after it flew off all birdsong took on great portent and I was drawn to a rich, husky voice; crept up to it–it was old mr. titmouse sounding like he never had before. Was just half ignoring what I thought to be another yellow-rumped, but it had that something in its call and I got the binocs–a worm eater very surprising in its tawny subtle coat! A time of not knowing and surprises. It’s cool to think that is moving like a wave, a continous front, a present moment that will last all the way to Pennsylvania.

Ovenbirds and wood thrushes should be back in a couple of weeks here. Right now is an interesting time too, though, because the thrasher is still hanging around the house. That never lasts, for some reason. Maybe the catbirds chase thrashers away.

The woodthrush is daylighting the forest! Boring tubular curves; laying pipe in loops.

Yes I was lucky enough to have been given the Kroodsma book and read a bit before he wore me out–up a two every morning and out the door with his microphone.

Those sonograms you linked to are breathtaking bodies!

Gaggles of (I’m guessing) first year orchard oriole males pass by way of treetops, or are they returning home? The ovenbird is whacking at greenery, with its call, in deep woods. What’s a hooded oriole doing here-it that’s what it is?

Yesterday for the first time I heard Baltimore Orioles whimper.

A very strange, too pretty, towhee-like call compelled me past the chicken house to the garden. Five minutes of concentrated moving and listening and looking revealed something too small to be a towhee with a pale bill that “hee-ed” in narrow, sparkling banners. Marvelous! What was it? Probably a towhee. The usual guy voicing new aires? Or an outsider moving though? Song sparrows and white-crowned sparrows appeared under freshly inked captions of dialog.

q.r.r. – Really? I almost didn’t include that photo because, after all, it’s not spectcular and I figured everyone was familiar with cherry sap! I guess it’s one of the few non-conifers to produce large quantities of resin like that.

Lucy – I’ll agree with the metallic part. Actually, they remind me of the kind of sounds one can make with one of those primitive little bird calls where a cylinder of wood is turned and rubbed against a metal rod.