My spring morning ritual has begun. I get a cup of coffee and step out on the porch at daybreak just to see who is singing. April 1 is when I expect the first robins and song sparrows to sing in my yard. The robins were on time. The sparrows were a couple days late.
More migrants will join the chorus as this month wears on. By the third week of April, I expect yellow-bellied sapsuckers to arrive and start drumming. The first pine, palm and yellow-rumped warblers will sing. So will ruby-crowned kinglets. Eastern phoebes will get obnoxiously loud the moment they arrive midmonth.
Meanwhile, most of my backyard noise is coming from a loud — and I mean really loud — tufted titmouse.
I grew up not recognizing the sounds of a tufted titmouse. They were not resident in northern New England. Within my lifetime, this species has gradually expanded its range. Although tufted titmice are now common year-round residents in southern and central Maine, they have not moved much past Lincoln.
A variety of southern birds have moved northward as the climate warms, forests rebound and bird-feeding becomes more popular. However, titmice thrive in deciduous and mixed forests and avoid predominantly coniferous habitat. Since Maine’s forest transitions to mostly evergreens farther north, tufted titmice may have already hit their northern limit. Thus, only half the state is waking up to the call of a tufted titmouse this morning.
This habitat limitation is also noticeable on mountains. As evergreens begin to dominate at higher elevations, titmice disappear. They are seldom seen above 2,000 feet. Even black-capped chickadees range higher than that before giving way to boreal chickadees around 3,000 feet.
Chickadees and titmice are closely related. Both species are comfortable around people and share similar habits, which are noticeable at a bird feeder. They dash in, grab a seed and retreat to a safe perch to eat. Both cache food for the winter. Both are cavity nesters.
Chickadees often flock together in the colder months. Titmice don’t. Pairs will spend much of the year together on their home territories, sometimes accompanied by their recent offspring. They are less social than chickadees but will join a foraging flock with their hyper-alert cousins for safety.
Titmice often line their nests with animal fur for insulation. Sometimes they’ll pluck hairs from live animals. Perhaps that would irritate a nervous dog, but it seems to amuse golden retrievers.
Titmice are vocal year-round. They are especially loquacious right now. Their distinctive “Peter-Peter-Peter” song is sung mostly by the male, but the female has her own softer variation. You can hear it from hundreds of yards away, so there is no mystery when they’re around. Both sexes make other noises too, sharing the chickadee habit of chattering with friends and scolding enemies. Frankly, I’m a bit insulted when they scold me for walking into my own backyard after I’ve fed them all winter.
I also attend to their housing needs. Woodpeckers are abundant in my neck of the woods, so there are many potential nest holes for titmice, chickadees and nuthatches. I make it a point to leave dead trees and limbs in my yard to preserve ample breeding habitat for cavity nesters. It works.
The titmice have company. Other southern birds continue to move north. Arguably, northern cardinals started the trend. The year I was born, they were not known to nest anywhere in New England. They now range well into Canada.
I regularly get surprised questions from readers when red-bellied woodpeckers and Carolina wrens show up in their yard. These formerly southern species have rapidly expanded their territories, although I suspect they will hit the same evergreen forest barriers that stymie the titmice.
I’ve got my eye on prairie warblers. They’ve also expanded northward, although at a slower pace. They’ve inched upward toward Bangor but don’t seem to have moved far beyond the Queen City over the last decade. Still, they are loud, with an easily recognized song. It’s a good species to listen for this spring.
Some birds are overwintering farther north, too. Readers still alert me when eastern bluebirds turn up in January. Until recently, turkey vultures could not withstand the cold of a Maine winter. Some are now content to remain in the southern part of our state year-round.
It’s still early spring. Most songbirds that eat insects are still weeks away. But backyards are getting noisier. It’s fun to watch spring arrive. It’s even more fun to hear it.
