Birders,
from where we roost, looks like “Southward-bound” or at least “drifting-about” is The Happening Thing
as of this morning we see peeps and other shorebirds showing up, swallows getting restless, and we’re seeing massive gatherings of Short-tailed Magpies
these appear to be a silent variant of the almost-always-very-vocal Black-billed Magpie and may be more distantly related to the somewhat-less-vocal-and-more-westerly Yellow-billed Magpie
these STMA exhibit another behavioral difference (other than being silent) – they form gangs of 30+ and kind of “wash over the landscape” like locusts do….
😉 Larry