You see a lot of interesting things on a golf course beside grown men making collective fools of themselves. Birds, for example.
I was once playing golf with my uncle in Charlotte when we saw a female quail thrashing around as if she was injured. I knew she must have had babies somewhere and I saw them, tiny birds, each about the size of a walnut, scurrying across the tee box. The little covey of about a dozen raced to the base of a bush and disappeared. Literally. I got down on my hands and knees and tried to see even one, but I couldn’t, and I knew exactly where they were. Finally, Uncle Jim asked if I was going to play golf or raise quail, so I continued playing.
Last week, while playing a round at Greene Hills near Stanardsville, I saw a pair of birds I was unfamiliar with. They were Eastern Kingbirds. They were almost dancing in mid-air, and I assumed it to be a mating ritual of some sort.
These part time visitors in Virginia are really pretty birds with grey bodies, black heads with a top-knot like a tit mouse and a distinctive white tail. About the size of a cardinal, the Eastern Kingbirds summer throughout Virginia, but I have never seen one in my yard. They raise one brood per year with a clutch of 3 to 4 eggs, then depart in August or September in groups of 20 or more.
In the summer, they perch like “kings” on tall branches, watching for the movement of an insect, then swoop down like a hawk, catching their prey, and returning to the same branch.
They are beautiful birds – I wish I could see them more often.