There truly is no other event on the birding calendar quite like migration! The southward movement of birds is in full swing, and there are lots of fascinating feathered friends taking a pit stop here in Philly. Some of my favorite avian travelers are the diminutive warblers. Like many other birds, they migrate at night and pause to feed and rest when dawn comes. To spot warblers, search out trees lit by the soft fall morning sunlight, and you will likely be rewarded with the royal pattern of a male Black-throated Blue Warbler, or the flickering color in an American Redstart's tail.
This male American Redstart shows off his striking coal-and-fire plumage. Photo by Toribird.
Several Ospreys, presumably migrants, were seen flying over the Woodlands at the Bird Calls morning concert in late August. Photo by Toribird.
Birds much larger than warblers are also on the move. On a brisk day with winds out of the northwest (optimal for migration), you may see gulls, raptors, herons, and nighthawks pass by overhead. If you are lucky, you may even catch large flocks (called kettles) with double-digit numbers of Broad-winged Hawks circling high above! If you are interested in finding out when the most migrants will be coming through, check out BirdCast. It's a website that analyzes various factors, including wind direction and radar, to predict how strong bird flight will be over the next three days. It now even lets you easily look at migration alerts for your local area!
And, on top of all the birds already mentioned, Red-breasted Nuthatches are already moving in! Like many boreal seedeaters, these nuthatches are an irruptive species (to read more about irruptive birds, I invite you to look at this previous blog post). Since the food source of these birds can fluctuate substantially, they must be able to adjust from year to year. Luckily for us Pennsylvania birders, this adjustment sometimes means that the birds come down to our area for the colder months of the year.
Illustration of a Carolina Parakeet by Alexander Wilson, a prominent early American ornithologist. The other three birds in the picture are (from left to right) Wilson's Warbler, Canada Warbler, and Hooded Warbler. The warblers have escaped extinction, at least for now - a haunting echo of the one in four birds lost. Picture from Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
On a more solemn note, we just recently hit the one-year anniversary of the staggering finding that North America has lost three billion birds in the last 50 years. That's the equivalent of having lost 1 in 4 birds since 1970. Perhaps the most worrisome part of this finding is that it's not only endangered species that are declining, but even common birds like Chimney Swifts and Herring Gulls are having a hard time as well.
I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the species that we have already lost. Last winter saw the premier of a remarkable choral piece focused on four extinct North American birds. Here, you can hear the movements dedicated to the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet. Both of these birds graced the Pennsylvania landscape in the time of William Hamilton.
Luckily, there are things we can all do to prevent the birds that are still with us from meeting the same dark fate as the Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet.
Here are seven simple actions to help birds:
1. Make windows safer - up to one billion birds die each year from colliding with windows. Applying decals, tempera paint, or stripe patterns spaced four inches apart horizontally to the outside surface of windows greatly reduces bird strikes.
2. Keep cats indoors or on a leash - cats make wonderful pets, but pose a significant threat to wildlife when left to their own devices, and kill about 2 and a half billion birds a year. Having cats as indoor pets or trained to walk on leashes is more humane for both cats and birds.
3. Use native plants - native plants are an essential source of food for birds, both directly and by providing a food source for the insects that birds rely on. As increasingly large swaths of habitat are destroyed, it is all the more important that we give birds the resources they need.
4. Avoid pesticides - these toxic chemicals can have deadly impact on birds if they are ingested, and have taken a severe toll on the insect population, which in turn also affects birds. Staying away from pesticides is much healthier for both people and birds.
5. Drink shade-grown coffee - the majority of coffee is grown on sun plantations that offer about as many ecological resources as a parking lot. Shade-grown coffee, as the name implies, is grown under tall trees and largely preserves the habitat.
6. Use less plastic - many birds, particularly those that live in or near the ocean, will frequently mistake plastic items for food. Stay away from single-use plastic as much as possible.
7. Watch birds and share what you see - citizen science is a vital part of tracking bird population trends. With increased knowledge, it becomes easier to identify how to best help at-risk species. Consider submitting your bird observations to eBird, a global database.
Written by:
Toribird
