The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Spring bird migration has come early to the Cumberland Plateau. Usually mid-April is when birds start trickling in -- swallows swoop and dart across fields, gnatcatchers and White-eyed Vireos scold from overgrown thickets just beginning to leaf out, the first warblers -- Black and Whites, Black-throated Greens, Yellow-throated -- sing from still-bare branches of oaks and poplars.
This year, though, is different. With the uncommonly mild winter and early spring, everything leafed out early -- most of the flowering trees are done flowering; nearly all of them have leaves. My wife's garden is weeks ahead of where it normally is. And the birds, somehow sensing this on their wintering grounds in Central and South America, have already started streaming through in earnest. Tanagers and orioles, grosbeaks and buntings, thrushes and several species of vireo -- all are here. And in the past few days the warblers have arrived in numbers. Hooded, Tennessee, Nashville, Yellow, Cape May Palm, Prairie, Blackburnian; Ovenbirds and Waterthrushes. I've seen more than twenty species of warbler already this year. No doubt more are on the way.
If you've never seen a warbler, you owe it to yourself to look for them, or at least Google "Blackburnian Warbler" (as a for instance) and look at the photos that pop up. These are gorgeous birds, decked out in smart suits of yellow and black, blue and gray, green and brown and red. They winter in the tropics and even the dullest among them look exotic. They are tiny -- each could fit in the palm of your hand. And their songs -- they offer a repertoire of trills, sweet whistles, chips, and bouncing melodies that, for me at least, is the true herald of spring's arrival.
But this is a limited time offer. The birds pass through on their way to their breeding grounds in the northern forests of New England and Canada. So look for them soon, or wait until next year.
Happy birding.
This year, though, is different. With the uncommonly mild winter and early spring, everything leafed out early -- most of the flowering trees are done flowering; nearly all of them have leaves. My wife's garden is weeks ahead of where it normally is. And the birds, somehow sensing this on their wintering grounds in Central and South America, have already started streaming through in earnest. Tanagers and orioles, grosbeaks and buntings, thrushes and several species of vireo -- all are here. And in the past few days the warblers have arrived in numbers. Hooded, Tennessee, Nashville, Yellow, Cape May Palm, Prairie, Blackburnian; Ovenbirds and Waterthrushes. I've seen more than twenty species of warbler already this year. No doubt more are on the way.
If you've never seen a warbler, you owe it to yourself to look for them, or at least Google "Blackburnian Warbler" (as a for instance) and look at the photos that pop up. These are gorgeous birds, decked out in smart suits of yellow and black, blue and gray, green and brown and red. They winter in the tropics and even the dullest among them look exotic. They are tiny -- each could fit in the palm of your hand. And their songs -- they offer a repertoire of trills, sweet whistles, chips, and bouncing melodies that, for me at least, is the true herald of spring's arrival.
But this is a limited time offer. The birds pass through on their way to their breeding grounds in the northern forests of New England and Canada. So look for them soon, or wait until next year.
Happy birding.