ENJOY
ANTICIPATION!
Did you hear it this morning? Bird song! That harbinger of exciting days afield to come? Spring migration! Brown Thrashers, Mockingbirds, Towhees, Titmice, Chickadees and, of course, the loud duets of Cardinals, all claiming their turf for the breeding season!
They are loud and clear during the “Dawn Chorus” of late. But hey! It’s only mid-February! No matter, at this latitude the age old urge to reproduce starts early and males are saying “this is my territory!”
Actually, the first spring migrants from the tropics, specifically, from the Amazon Basin, are already here, Purple Martins. Some of us look forward to reporting the first warbler of the season, the Northern Parula.
Formerly, the Duncans cornered the market on that until recent years when the population of birders exploded! Actually, the first Parula was reported on 22 January by Andrew Holzinger, but it’s difficult to determine whether that was an unusual wintering bird or a recent arrival. Becky McQueen reported the second one, trilling from the live oaks in her yard. That was reported on 17 Feb and was most certainly a new arrival. Louisiana Waterthrushes and Barn Swallows can be expected soon.
Right now there’s a hiatus between the first very early arrivals mentioned above and the beginning of the real surge northward of Neotropical birds which begins about mid-March. By then White-eyed and Red-eyed Vireos, Yellow-throated, Prairie, Black & White and Prothonotary Warblers, Orchard Orioles and others will make their arrival known.
Will it be a great spring migration? That depends totally on the weather. Lots of fronts with rainy weather will cause “fallouts” and birders will rejoice.
(For novice birders, a Spring “fallout” is when birds encounter rain and headwinds in the Gulf on their trans-Gulf crossing and land at the nearest available land – think Ft. Pickens, Gulf Breeze, Ft. Morgan and Dauphin Island). Should it be a dry spring with southerly winds, birds will fly over the coastal areas, keep going inland, and rejoice while birders go into a blue funk.
By Bob Duncan