Migration. Generally, when I think of bird migration, I envision a neat line connecting, say, South America with North America, specifically Maine. Look at a species’ range map and it seems clear: Scarlet Tanagers winter way down there, migrate through there, and breed up here. It’s an impressively long, but straightforward, path.
However, when I think of an individual migrating bird, like the Scarlet Tanager singing outside my window, I start picturing an epic journey. It’s no longer a straight line, but an impressive flight for survival, for food and nesting habitat, for the individual bird and the species. There are grand feats—navigating at night by the stars or the Earth’s magnetic field, flying across countries, continents, over oceans—and ever-increasing dangers—fewer stopover spots to rest and refuel, stronger storms, brighter disorienting lights.
Only half of migrating birds might survive in a year. Just making it one way is a feat, but they’ll need to turn around and do it all over again in a matter of months.
In spring, some of those migrating birds show up in our Central Maine yard for a day or a season. Scarlet Tanagers return from South America, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks from Central and South America, Red-eyed Vireos the Amazon Basin. As spring migration peaked this past month, I wanted to do the math on all their miles traveled.
It’s easily 2,000 to 3,000 miles each way for the long-distance birds. But bird math has many variables. Other birds migrate medium distances or a few hundred miles along the East Coast. Then there are birds like the Cooper’s Hawk, which might migrate short distances (does this one winter in Connecticut?) or long ones (or in Honduras?). I’d guess tens of thousands of miles are flown in total by the birds to end up here, this spring, in this single yard. Maybe hundreds of thousands. I’ll never know.
However long its journey, each of these birds now eating, resting, or singing in my birch, maple, or apple trees has seen places I never will, from vantage points I can only imagine. It’s a wonder.
Spring is a melodious time. Opening a window I might hear an American Redstart, Red-eyed Vireo, or Yellow-rumped Warbler. For some, this is the destination, for others it’s a spot to rest or fuel up on the continuing quest for nesting habitat and food supplies. For me, it’s a glimpse into amazing odysseys.
Here are a few highlights from the spring 2024 class of avian migrants in our yard.
Sparrows
New Yard Bird! I saw a Savannah Sparrow for the first time in our yard this spring. It hung out in the unmown grass for a day or two, and even obliged for pics on a branch before moving along.
White-throated Sparrows tend to be one of the earlier migrants I notice. I’ll first hear them rustling around our brush pile or in the leaves and undergrowth, popping out for a moment.
Chipping Sparrows arrive later, but stick around with fledglings through fall, making this home.
Warblers
Look up. No there. No over there. Wait…where did it go? That was a warbler you didn’t see.
Warblers are tricky buggers. They hang out in the upper canopy, energetically bouncing from branch to branch, behind leaves, like little pinballs. They can be loud, but difficult to spot, and far harder to photograph. This spring I figured out I could crank open my third-floor skylight window, stand on a stool, angle my camera lens just so, and try to get pictures of them in the trees…if a warbler obliged by momentarily landing in the right spot.
Even then, they’re likely to be blurs among blurry leaves. Or a distant sound. For example, I repeatedly heard a Pine Warbler while typing this. I hear it most days. But I’ve only photographed one in our yard a few times.
More Migrants
I was excited to see two Hermit Thrushes hanging out in our yard during my lunch (and theirs) back in April. While Hermit Thrushes live nearby, they rarely show up in my yard. Or at least, I’ve rarely seen or heard them from my yard. These two seemed to appreciate the brush and downed trees and weren’t bothered by me walking slowly to take some pictures.
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have an impressive knack for showing up at our feeders on World Migratory Bird Day (May 11th this year), after flying for a week or two from Central America. Maybe it’s marked on their calendars.
Gray Catbirds aren’t uncommon, but I tend to see a single one only a few days in spring before it moves on to…a better spot, I guess.
I don’t live in a marsh, but Red-winged Blackbirds also visit regularly early in spring, probably for the easy, free food.
I was excited for the Cooper’s Hawk that occasionally passes through our yard (another new Yard Bird! unless it’s really a Sharp-Shinned). Know who wasn’t happy? All the birds it’s chasing down on its own food journey. Want to see 20 American Robins take flight? Send in a hawk.
Migrating Meditations
The diversity of migrating birds can be impressive, and I wanted to record a snapshot of the season. But sometimes I wonder if sharing more pictures of wildlife online just makes us feel like nature is plentiful, abundant, fine. No worries here. Keep on scrolling for more birds, ad infinitum.
Birds are not fine though; nature is not fine. We’ve lost three billion breeding adult birds in the past 50 years (that’s 30 percent) due to habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, building collisions, outdoor cats, and more. Keep on this way and we’ll continue to have fewer and fewer birds in the real world.
Now when I look at a migration map, I try to remember we’re somewhere on it too, a spot on a bird’s lengthy flight for continued existence. I don’t need to imagine it though, because actual birds making astounding journeys arrive here after thousands of miles to rest, to refuel on insects and seeds, to make nests and more birds, and hopefully to return again.
Click on an image above to see it larger. All pictures copyrighted and taken by me (Alicia MacLeay) spring 2024 in my yard in Kennebec County, Maine.
To learn about the birds you see and where they came from or are going, check out All About Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology or Audubon’s Bird Migration Explorer. For ways to plant more native plants and restore habitat wherever you live, check out Homegrown National Park.