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Songbird bird1/31/2024 The ideal night in spring will be when areas just to the south of you have clear skies, warm temperatures, and steady winds out of the south. Watch the weather to look for good flight nights. Some nights produce much heavier bird traffic than others. If you have a backyard or a nearby park with only a few trees, try to check them first thing in the morning to see if any new visitors have arrived overnight. By later in the day, they may have moved on to look for another spot with taller trees or thicker thickets. ![]() Songbirds in stopover habitat often gather in mixed flocks, so if you’re not seeing any birds, keep moving until you find a migrant-then look around to see if it has company.īecause these birds travel at night, early morning is the time when they’re most likely to be seen in marginal habitats. Very large patches of habitat, such as large parks or forest areas, can be better for the birds but more challenging for the birders, as the migrants become harder to find in those surroundings. Isolated trees in city backyards or hotel courtyards may act as stopover habitat for small birds that are just passing through. (I once saw an ovenbird and two American redstarts in the shrubbery of a small planter at a bank building in downtown Philadelphia.) Small city parks often host a fine assortment of migratory songbirds the surrounding square miles of concrete serve to concentrate the birds, as the tired migrants gravitate toward the small patches of green. Most of the migratory songbirds live in trees and shrubs, so they’ll settle for even one tree or one shrub, at least temporarily, if they have no other choice. The short answer is that you can look for them almost anywhere. But eventually, each bird will settle for whatever spot it can find, and that spot will have to serve as its stopover habitat. If they still have energy left, they may fly several miles after sunrise, looking for a choice patch of woods or marsh or meadow. But during their night flights they are subject to wind and weather, so in the morning they might come down practically anywhere. A blackburnian warbler, for example, might fly from Maine to Ecuador in the fall, coming back in spring to the very same tree in Maine where it sang the year before. These birds have amazing navigational powers. They may cover 200 miles or more during a night flight, and when they come down, they need to rest and feed and build up their strength for the next flight. They take off just after dark, fly through the night, and land near dawn, if they’re over land at that point (if they’re over water, of course, they keep going). These birds-dozens of species of warblers, thrushes, vireos, orioles, flycatchers, tanagers, grosbeaks, and more- migrate mostly at night. ![]() The stars of the show right now are small birds that travel large distances: songbirds that spend the winter in the tropics, coming north to spend the summer in the United States and Canada. So no matter where you are, you have a chance to see some migrating songbirds. In fact, during their travels, a few of them will stop in just about every tree on this continent. But right now, in early May, hundreds of millions of small songbirds are migrating north, and they pass over every square mile of land and water in the temperate regions of North America. It’s true that some birds, such as geese and cranes, follow fairly narrow corridors of travel, and shorebirds will gather only at certain spots. Here’s the good news: We all live on a flyway. Often I hear responses like this: “Well, I’d like to see migrating birds sometime. ![]() I talk about it with everyone-even complete strangers. At this time of year, I’m obsessed with bird migration.
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