Editor’s note: This story was originally published in October 2023.
All birders agree that the most exciting time of year for birding is spring, when all the migrants are returning. I’m starting to wonder if all birders are wrong. This continues to be a fascinating autumn.
Spring is bombastic. The woods are alive with song, as birds race northward to grab a territory and a mate before rivals beat them. But spring is also predictable and easy.
Birds generally return to their exact same spots each year, singing competitively, revealing exactly where they are and what they’re doing. Mating season is frenetic and compact. In three or four weeks, the frenzy is over.
Autumn is leisurely and subdued. Birds are in no hurry. Most birds arrive during a compressed four weeks in spring. Autumn departures span 10 weeks. Spring birds announce their arrivals. Autumn birds sneak out quietly.
Autumn birds are all done with defending territories, mates and youngsters. They are no longer rooted to one place, so they tend to wander.
Songbirds not normally seen in Maine turn up in the state each fall. This week, a young purple gallinule showed up in Greenville. This ungainly marsh bird nests no farther north than Georgia, yet there it was, east of Moosehead Lake.
I’m not surprised. I saw one northeast of Quebec City a few years ago.
Hooded warblers nest from Georgia to New Jersey, not in New England. So lots of Mainers went to visit the one that showed up in Biddeford this week.
Monhegan traps a lot of wandering birds, and the Hammond’s flycatcher that showed up this week was confirmed to be the first ever seen in Maine. This western species rarely gets east of the Rockies, let alone all the way to the Atlantic.
I had my own brush with an oddity this week, when a yellow-breasted chat visited Schoodic Point, landing in the nearest tree. New Jersey is about the closest they nest. This bird was the first I’d ever seen in Maine. The last chat I saw was in South Dakota five years ago.
Hurricane season plays a role, and storms have done some wacky things this year.
American flamingos breed in Central and South America. Occasionally, Florida gets some visitors. This month, flamingos have touched down over a swath of the Midwest from Kentucky to Wisconsin! Yes, flamingos in Wisconsin!
Most songbirds migrate at night. In spring, you know by the noise when they’ve arrived.
In autumn, they depart silently, often in astonishing numbers. You might not even know they are gone, unless you happen to be where the flock settles down in the morning. Or if you happen to use the sidewalk next to a Chicago skyscraper.
McCormick Place Lakeside Center is the largest convention center in North America. The framework is concrete and steel, but most of the exterior is glass. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, it is a famous death trap for migrating birds.
On Oct. 10, nearly a thousand songbirds littered the sidewalk after crashing into the windows overnight. Skyscrapers, towers, high-tension power lines — humans have stuck a lot of things high into the air, which unsuspecting birds crash into in the darkness.
Migration didn’t used to be this dangerous.
While all this unpredictability adds an air of excitement to fall birding, there are some aspects that are wonderfully predictable.
Nocturnal migration along the Atlantic inevitably causes some birds to set down on offshore islands in the morning. Maine has a lot of those. Some locations aren’t just good hot spots, they’re downright scorching.
Many birds form foraging flocks in autumn. You can hike for a long time and encounter nothing. Then, suddenly, you’re surrounded by a noisy flock of varying species.
If you don’t notice their little titter sounds, fear not. Chickadees are usually at the heart of such flocks, and they are helpfully noisy.
Birds that catch insects on the wing leave earlier than birds that glean insects off leaves, and both leave earlier than seed-eaters. That means virtually all swallows and flycatchers are gone by now.
Ruby-crowned kinglets are passing through in big numbers, but most warblers have departed. Only yellow-rumped warblers are still here in big numbers, but that’s because they can subsist on a wider variety of foods than most warblers.
Meanwhile, clouds of seed-eating sparrows are foraging in backyards and along roadsides. Finches are flying around and foraging in treetops.
It’s harder to notice this stuff in fall, but it’s there if you know where to look.
