If you were in some are more urban then I am here at Fish Springs, it would be easy to think otherwise. But my many years of being here and tuning into the message the birds send is not to be mistaken. For several mornings now, the resident Canada geese and their rambunctious youngsters have been making pre-dawn flights of restless angst around the housing area and the edge of the marsh. The urge to move on among the young is not well understood by them but they are anxious nonetheless.
Our annual fall migration of shorebirds is largely past. It actually begins in mid-July and continues into mid-September. Most of our resident nesting shorebirds have moved out and I suspect that many might even be in Mexico or points south by now. Our long-billed curlews, the first of our nesting shorebirds to show up in the spring and the first to leave in the fall, are very likely ensconced the beach somewhere on the coast of Sinaloa in Mexico, the wintering site for most of the North American population of this species.
The annual fall migration of waterfowl is in full swing. It will usually peaks in September. Unlike, the northward spring migration, which is a much more leisurely process and where stops are keyed toward being able to stock up on high protein foods in preparation for the nesting season, the fall migration is fuel by advantageous weather events associated with cold fronts and by locations where high energy foods will permit fat layers to be added for the oftentimes long trip to follow. Many of the ducks that stop here to use the “Fish Springs Bed & Breakfast” will ultimately end up wintering as far south as the pampas of Argentina, a long haul by any standard!
This long distance effort to find a more favorable wintering area is not just the domain of wetland birds. While we often do not see large flocks, as is the case with shorebirds and waterfowl in the fall, our songbirds are also making the long distance run. We note them in the trees and shrubs around the headquarters, particularly when they run up against a strong south wind that is simply too much work to migrate against. They rest, feed up and then are gone with the return of a favorable north wind. Sometimes it seems they have either come or are gone “overnight.” This is in fact the case. Almost all songbird long distance migration occurs at night!
Birds of prey are also engaged in finding more southern climes but they tend to do so in an individual fashion. We see lots of Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks in the trees around the housing area and sometimes have even been privileged enough to see them take a bird to eat. It can be quite a chase scene, I think as exciting as any I have seen on the nightly news! Rough-legged hawks will make the long trek from the artic to winter here and our small nesting population of northern harriers will be swelled by migrants. In another 5-6 weeks, we will see the first of the wintering bald eagles show up. When winter is warmer, the bald eagles tend to leave the Refuge and spend time engaged in their primary feeding behavior of fishing on lakes and streams. When temperatures drop and those locations freeze over, the eagles return to the Refuge to forage on waterfowl until things thaw enough to return to fishing.
On Fish Springs, we find that migration is not even limited to just birds. Our small resident pronghorn flock, with us from late March until late October, will make their way to a traditional wintering area, we suspect north of us on the Dugway Proving Ground.
All of this migration madness leads me to believe that perhaps this proclivity for retired folks to want to be “snowbirds” is really just a return to some natural rhythm that we once new but have suppressed over the eons of being stationery for employment and family. You know, maybe some time on the Sinaloa coast does not sound too bad. Maybe those long-billed curlews are on to something………
Posts
I agree, those birds are on to something. But I sure do welcome the cooler fall temperatures.
ReplyDelete