Where have all the songbirds gone?
Our yard is quiet. Gone are crowds of birds hustling and bustling around bird feeders, singing from tree perches and scurrying around flower gardens and bushes.
Bluebirds that had reared four broods in a nest box have been gone since August. No cardinals are perching like baubles on the bird feeder, and robins aren’t waking me at dawn singing “cheerily-cheerily-cheer-up .”
Even the house sparrows and white-winged doves have vacated the yard. Can’t say I miss them, though.
I do miss the other songbirds. Where did they go?
The quick answer is that many resident songbirds, like cardinals, downy woodpeckers and tufted titmice, wander off after breeding season. Except for Carolina wrens that are still singing “tea-kettle-tea-kettle.” Bless them.
Migratory songbirds, like summer tanagers and greatcrested flycatchers, leave for winter homes in Latin America.
Meanwhile, a horde of rubythroated hummingbirds have migrated to our yard and are buzzing from break of day to setting sun around sugar-water feeders and nectar plants like Turk’s cap. They’ll be gone to Latin America by November.
A male rufous hummingbird, which breeds in the western states, arrived in our yard on Sept. 6. He’ll stick around through winter. Bless him. Back to wandering songbirds. They only came to our yard because we gave them ample food for raising chicks. But that’s been over since August, when birds began their post-breeding dispersal.
That means parent birds went in search of new territories where competition against other
songbirds for food might be less fierce than it was in our yard during breeding season.
Juvenile birds left on a quest for their own feeding grounds, to avoid competition with parents and siblings. Going out on their own also forfends against inbreeding, which would have a deleterious effect on the gene pool of their species.
Hormonal changes may induce restlessness in songbirds, compelling them to wander. But not all wander.
Carolina wrens stay put. Bluebirds don’t wander too far away and generally return after a brief spell. Both are examples of birds that live in extended family groups, with several generations remaining on or near natal grounds.
Songbirds that did wander will settle down for the winter between now and November, and the cardinals that nested in my yard may come back. Or maybe not. They may instead show up in your yard — and yours may show up in mine.
I saw a pair of cardinals on a bird feeder a moment ago. Wanderers hopefully settling down.