Most weeks, I invite you to notice what’s happening to the birds around you. This week, I invite you to notice what’s not happening.
I was at Schoodic Point a year ago when huge flocks of chickadees were fleeing the state. One group contained more than 300 individuals.
They were milling around the Winter Harbor portion of Acadia National Park, waiting for a favorable wind to carry them southward across Frenchman Bay. They already knew it was going to be a lean winter in the northeast. They’d known for months.
The chickadees weren’t alone. Red-breasted nuthatches and blue jays also moved south in big numbers. I spent early winter in the woods while surveying for the Maine Bird Atlas and noticed the scarcity of common birds.
This year, I’m not noticing much movement at all. In fact, there is so much natural food around that birds have been ignoring backyard feeders. Even the blue jays have avoided me.
During the last three autumns, I’ve complained bitterly about how the jays were tucking 50 sunflower seeds at a time into their cheeks and carrying them off to winter hiding places. Worse, after emptying my feeders, they flew south anyway, wasting all that food.
So far, they’re not doing it at my house this year. How about at your house?
Not many finches are moving around. Finches don’t migrate north-south annually. Instead, they wander around until they find a food supply they like. Their food preference differs by species, but the effect is the same.
A sudden invasion is called an irruption, and I invite you to notice we haven’t had one this fall.
Some of the potentially irruptive species include evening grosbeaks, pine grosbeaks, red crossbills, white-winged crossbills and common redpolls.
Purple finches, American goldfinches and pine siskins nest in Maine, but they can be joined by more birds from Canada during a big irruption year.
So far, only the goldfinches and pine siskins have been noisily flying around the landscape. Given the abundant natural food supply this year, I expect they will stick around.
Bohemian and cedar waxwings wander. They are more interested in berries and crabapples than seeds. If these foods are in short supply elsewhere, you can be sure they’ll invade Maine.
So far, not yet.
Many sparrows moved through this week, but that’s not unusual. Flocks always swarm through Maine at about this time.
They often go unnoticed because, well, they’re sparrows. They’re brown. They look alike. They’re not crazy about feeders, although they don’t mind foraging through backyards.
Sparrows frequently form large mixed flocks and forage along weedy road edges. Most of them are song and white-throated sparrows. There are often dark-eyed juncos among them.
Juncos are slate-gray instead of brown, but they are members of the sparrow family. It’s relatively easy to perceive when they’re around because they are noisy, making a twittering sound unlike any other species.
Sorting through a flock of sparrows is like panning for gold. Sometimes you find a nugget.
White-crowned sparrows migrate through Maine during October. They are abundant across the continent.
In the west, their breeding range extends down the Rocky Mountains in Montana. In the east, they nest much farther north, in Quebec, Labrador and the northern tip of Newfoundland.
White-crowned sparrows are similar in size and behavior to white-throated sparrows, but their striped white crowns are bright and distinctive. But juveniles have streaky brown crowns, totally unlike their parents.
They fool everyone.
Clay-colored sparrows nest in Maine, barely. In some years, they breed on Kennebunk Plains in southern Maine. Otherwise, they are a mid-continent bird, with no breeding north of Maine. They can wander east in autumn. Several have been seen in the state over the last week.
Likewise, lark sparrows nest nowhere east of Ohio, but they have an even greater inclination to wander. Several show up in Maine each fall, often in feeding flocks with other sparrows.
Sparrow flocks may not catch the notice of most people but fall migration surprises make them worth scanning.
There’s one last transition that is worthwhile to notice. Chipping sparrows and American tree sparrows both have rusty caps, white breasts and a line through the eye.
Chipping sparrows nest throughout Maine. American tree sparrows nest across northern Canada. About this time of year, both head south, with the tree sparrows arriving just as the chipping sparrows are leaving.
Pro tip: the eyeline is black on the chipping sparrow, brown on the tree sparrow. You’ll thank me later.
