Jan 292014
According to Birds of Georgia, the eastern phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) is a “drab” bird, although it makes up for this with its trait of enthusiastically pumping its tail up and down, “exhibited with a zest and frequency that few species can match.” This particular phoebe paused just long enough for me to take its photograph, looking particularly contemplative (and rather cold), set against a gravel road backdrop evocative of a Japanese rock garden.
I have a nest of eastern phoebes in my backyard. These hyper little birds always are the kings of the feeder,
bossing all the chickadees and cardinals for the best perching spot. I find the birds, with their slate-colored
backs and their pale gray down that holds just a hint of yellow, quite interesting. As a nature lover, I know these birds are part of the Flycatcher family, a family that originated in the lush tropical forests that dominated the Americas 20 million years ago. When the Ice age started, most of its kin flew down to the then-forested southwest, where they still reside today. But the Phoebe stayed, losing its vibrant coloration for the grays that hide it in the moraines left after the retreat of the glaciers. To me, this unremarkable bird is the most amazing creature a birder could live next to
Thank you for sharing more about the natural history of the eastern phoebe. I confess that I am a terrible birder, with the exception of Maine coast birds — I worked one summer for Project Puffin, as an educator narrating boat tours out to the Atlantic puffin colony on Eastern Egg Rock. Have you heard of Project Puffin? Started by ornithologist Steve Kress, the project is working to restore Atlantic puffins to the Maine coast. Anyway, I got fairly good at identifying puffins and other coastal birds, but I never got the knack of identifying feeder birds.