AILSA CHANG, HOST:
If hope is the thing with feathers, then spring is a great time of year to look up. Billions of birds head north during spring migration to nest and breed, and you can find them even in the densest of cities. NPR's Melissa Block sent this audio postcard from the wilds of our nation's capital.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
MELISSA BLOCK, BYLINE: Here's the thing. You just have to tune your ears a bit...
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
BLOCK: ...Filter out traffic and horns...
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR HORN HONKING)
BLOCK: ...And focus on song.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
BLOCK: I've come out early on a Sunday morning to meet up with a few fellow birders. We'll be catching the tail-end of spring migration.
TYKEE JAMES: Good morning.
BLOCK: I'm Melissa.
JAMES: Melissa, finally nice to meet you.
BLOCK: Great to meet you, too.
JAMES: Yeah.
BLOCK: Tykee James bikes up. He's president of D.C. Audubon. He suggested we go birding in Fort Slocum Park. It's just a few blocks long, set among brick row houses.
(SOUNDBITE OF LEAVES CRUNCHING)
BLOCK: Step into the park, and you find yourself under a thick canopy of towering oak and elm.
JAMES: Pros and cons of being in here - it's very dense, so it's really great migratory stopover habitat. But - oh, (imitating peewee call) peewee. Nice. But, yeah, you're going to hear more than you see (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF EASTERN WOOD PEEWEE CALLING)
BLOCK: That little Eastern wood peewee - it's likely migrated all the way up from South America this spring to breed.
EMMIE BHAGRATTI: (Imitating peewee call) Peewee.
(SOUNDBITE OF EASTERN WOOD PEEWEE CALLING)
BHAGRATTI: You can't unhear it. Every time I hear a peewee, I'm like, there's a peewee. It's right there.
BLOCK: This is Emmie Bhagratti.
BHAGRATTI: People think, when you're birding in a big city, you can't get to places like this. But honestly, with the exception of some ambient noise, I mean, would you know that you're in D.C. right now?
BLOCK: And we're hearing a lot - the burbly buzz of a blue gray gnatcatcher, the insistent teakettle-teakettle of a Carolina wren.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAROLINA WREN CALLING)
BHAGRATTI: One of the smallest birds but also one of the loudest.
BLOCK: Pretty soon, we hear the raucous rasp of a great crested flycatcher.
(SOUNDBITE OF GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER CALLING)
BLOCK: We hear eastern towhees, singing, drink your tea.
(SOUNDBITE OF EASTERN TOWHEE CALLING)
BLOCK: And all of a sudden, Jo Stiles spots one of my favorite birds.
JO STILES: Oh, oh, oh.
BHAGRATTI: I just saw that.
STILES: Yeah, yeah. Did you see that? Oh.
BHAGRATTI: OK, yeah, there it is.
STILES: Are you seeing it?
BLOCK: Oh, it's so pretty.
It's a spectacular male American redstart, black with bright orange patches that flash in the sun.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
STILES: It's on full display right now, which - I know it's called a redstart, but I would think of it a little more orange.
BHAGRATTI: It's very much like a Halloween, orange-and-black palette.
STILES: Yeah.
BHAGRATTI: It's not red to me at all.
BLOCK: Birders will often talk about their spark bird - the one that got them hooked. Jo Stiles is especially fond of loons.
STILES: You know, it's a very melancholy call, which is very beautiful. I can do it on my hands.
BHAGRATTI: Oh.
STILES: (Imitates loon call).
BLOCK: Wow.
BHAGRATTI: Wow. It's so good.
BLOCK: Impressive.
BHAGRATTI: Chills.
BLOCK: So impressive, in fact, that the Merlin Bird app, which identifies audio of bird songs and calls - the app registered Jo doing that and reported that there was a loon nearby.
BHAGRATTI: No way.
(LAUGHTER)
JAMES: It came up as a loon.
BHAGRATTI: That's awesome.
BLOCK: In the end, after about an hour and a half in the park, we've seen or heard...
JAMES: Chimney swift, red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, northern flicker, American crow...
BLOCK: Twenty-three species in all.
JAMES: ...Blue gray gnatcatcher, Carolina wren...
BLOCK: Not bad for a morning's amble in the heart of Washington, D.C.
JAMES: ...Blackpoll warbler, northern cardinal and, as our last bird, the brown thrasher.
BLOCK: Melissa Block, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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