by Nona Estrin
Birds are suddenly quieter in the mornings, the plant kingdom is focused on seed, yet summer is still in full swing. We’ve had our first cool morning fog and on hot afternoons thunderheads billow up and can be seen for miles. This morning I was in a big commercial blueberry field in southern Vermont, where a flock of 50 juvenile robins and 20 or more young eastern kingbirds were making two very different kinds of racket. The robins were doing the cluck call and fluttering, not very gracefully, amongst the bushes, then flapping off in small groups as I approached. The kingbirds were there for food, surely, but making a social occasion of chasing, chattering and diving in pairs. All young, all with hormones hopping and the prospect of a first migration not far off!
