The comings and goings of backyard birds
That blue jay yawping “jaaay’’ as it flies by — is it the same one that jawed at you a few weeks ago?
Maybe not. It may be down from Quebec, while the azure flash you saw in July may be heading for the Carolinas.
Ditto on a flock of birds we think of as constants in our yards and neighborhoods, including robins and bluebirds and black-capped chickadees.
For, while we may be standing still, we live in a world of constant motion. We may hurry, binoculars in hand, to catch the spring warblers returning, or watch hawks leave the scene in one and twos and tens and hundreds in the fall. anymore because some stay store in Brookfield, said she’s year-round, shifting their diet had a male red-bellied woodfrom insects to berries and pecker come to her backyard seeds. Others flock and head feeder and squawk out its call. south. Some more northerly Then his mate and their newly robins may winter here, then fledged chicks would come leave come March. and feed. When they were
Bethany Sheffer, naturalist done, Robbins said, the male and volunteer coordinator at would dig in. the Sharon Audubon Center, And there are irruptive said there can be movement birds — purple finches, redeven at the local level. breasted nuthatches, pine
“Robins can leave your siskins — that can show up in yard, and move to a forest a the state in good numbers if few miles away to get more the seed crops fail in Canada. shelter in winter,” she said. Comins said purple finches
Those same robins can then — all-raspberry colored veremerge from the woods in sions of the house finch — are March, pulling worms from moving through the state now. the newly thawed ground. “I haven’t seen any, but it But within these grand go south,” Comins said. “I love to see that,” Sheffer could be happening,” Robbins migrations — from the CanaSome New Hampshire jays said. said. dian tundra to the West Indies end up here, some keep going. Sparrows are very migratoAnd the grand fall migraand down to Argentina — Some of the jays that summer ry, even if, catching them out tion has been a good one this there are shifts of birds movhere join the caravan for of the corner of our eye, we year. Ken Elkins, education ing shorter distances as the warmer spots. think, little brown jobbie. director of Audubon Connectiseasons change. Black-capped chickadees Slate-colored juncos are our cut’s Bent of the River nature
But because they can be migrate as well, Comins said, snowbirds — while some nest center in Southbury, said that puddle jumps rather than depending on the availability in the state, most summer in in September, migrating warheroic flights, they may be a of food. That’s why some Canada, then gather at our blers and songbirds stacked little harder to get a fix on. years, winter feeders hop with feeders when the cold sets in. up at the center’s feeders.
“We don’t understand them chickadees, while in others, And there are some birds “There were feeding flocks 100 percent,” said Patrick there are only two or three. that live year-round in Conall migrating together,” Elkins Comins, executive director of Occasionally, a boreal necticut, but shift their locasaid. the Connecticut Audubon chickadee — brown-capped, tions by season. And sometimes, nature Society. and brown-breasted — makes Hairy woodpeckers don’t center education directors get
Take blue jays. Comins said its way from Canada to southshow up along the coast in lucky. they are year-round residents. ern New England. But, Cosummer, Comins said, but set After telling people to be Some nest and raise young mins said, the Carolina chickup winter quarters there. aware that it’s hawk migration and never leave the Connectiadee — an almost identical There are also sedentary season, Elkins said he looked cut. cousin of the blacked-capped birds — birds that live in one
up.“There were a small numBut if you go to a hawk — stays south, drawing a line place year-round. Comins said watch at a place like Lightnear Trenton, New Jersey. cardinals, mockingbirds and ber of broad-winged hawks house Point in New Haven, The American robin — our red-bellied woodpeckers are flying over,” he said. you see big flocks of jays on the state bird — does the same good examples of that. move. thing as the blue jay. It’s not Margaret Robbins, owner
“The most northern birds exactly a harbinger of spring of the Wild Bird Unlimited