Best ways to see birds as autumn migration ends
If you go online or read your local paper, you can find a wide variety of nature and conservation organizations offering hikes and outings, ways to get outside with fellow nature enthusiasts, and perhaps learn something new. I had the good fortune to join a group of birders this past Saturday on a bird walk at Great Works Regional Land Trust’s Tuckahoe Preserve in Berwick, Maine. The Tuckahoe Preserve winds along the Salmon Falls River and protects 131 acres of beautiful riparian (riverside) habitat for wildlife.
The autumn bird migration is beginning to wind down and so we saw some of the later migrants making their way south — some to points much further south, and some will stay here. The two species that were the highlight of this particular walk (in addition to the warblers and a gorgeous great blue heron flying along the river) were golden-crowned kinglets and white-throated sparrows.
As a dabbler in the birding community, these are two birds that I find very difficult to identify. The white-throated sparrows don’t always display their flashy white throat (or happen to be of the more drab morph) and so, to me, are the quintessential small brown bird. Kinglets I am starting to recognize. If it is tiny, up high in the trees where you can’t get a good look at it, and constantly on the move, it is often a kinglet. These kinglets were extraordinary, one pair, in particular, chased each other all around us, flashing bright crowns that stood out like fiery beacons in the early morning light. When they aren’t trying to make a point, the crown of the kinglet is somewhat hidden, the yellow and red feathers held flat against their heads. We couldn’t figure out why they were doing this — the crown flashing is usually a territorial display between males, too late for that.
If I had been out walking by myself, I would not have had such a rich experience. I have trouble hearing the high-pitched calls of the golden-crowned kinglets and white-throated sparrows, so I might have missed these two birds completely. When seeing these birds dart through the bushes or flit around in the treetops, I might have thought they were all "just" chickadees and unidentifiable sparrows. By going with birding experts — in this case, walk leader Maine master naturalist Frank Dehler — I had a much better chance of finding out what was out there.
Walks like these are also a chance to acquire new tools. Frank showed us Cornell Lab’s Merlin app, which enables you to record bird songs and identify them. This has revolutionized my ability to identify birds. I just open the app, press record and discover who is singing and chirping around me.
We also learned about BirdCast (birdcast.org). BirdCast applies weather surveillance radar to gather information on the numbers, flight directions, speeds and altitudes of birds aloft in order to expand the understanding of migratory bird movement. It also includes migration alerts and a dashboard that provides radar-based measurements of nocturnal bird migration at county and state levels in the contiguous United States. Most bird migrations happen at night, so there is so much we are missing, but paying attention to the migration data can help us predict who will be passing through our backyards so we know who to look for during the day.
All this from just one bird walk! I highly recommend checking out (and joining) your local land trusts, the Audubon Society or any nearby nature or conservation organizations. You never know what you will discover.