It may seem like we get some version of winter right up until at least May, but these months leading up to true Cape Cod spring are actually pretty busy in the bird world. More than you may realize, new arrivals are quietly, and not so quietly slipping back into the area from points south, while the hardiest of the hardy are getting down to nesting already. These vanguards who bridge late winter to spring for us hopeful humans include blackbirds, owls, vultures, and shorebirds, and these months of mud wouldn’t be as tolerable without them.
The early breeders include two of the biggest and most charismatic members of our avian megafauna – Great Horned Owls and Bald Eagles. Both initiate nesting at a time of year when it’s not uncommon for the female to be incubating with a pile of accumulating snow on her head – Great Horneds are on eggs now, and Bald Eagles are at least sprucing up their nests if not also incubating eggs. Please watch for eagles carrying sticks or grass right now and report them to me or Mass Wildlife if you see any signs of nesting – we’re still stuck at one or two nests on the Cape in any given year, but I know others are out there.
The early migrants include some of our least charismatic avifauna, depending on who you ask, in the form of Common Grackles. Ok, they are actually pretty good looking when you see them in the right light, with that iridescent purply head and glossy body. Plus I had my first one fly over the yard yesterday, and the first one you see in late winter is always exciting. But soon the hordes arrive and they quickly seem less special. The flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds returning now seem to be more popular overall, their cong-a-ree calls and flashy red epaulets livening up the leafless winter swamps, like a warm up act for the spring peepers.
Turkey Vultures are slowly teetering their way back into our lives on v-shaped wings. On the Outer Cape, where I tend to hang out, the first few reports came right on cue around the 12th. Look for them over the highway or around saltmarshes and beaches looking to clean up whatever dead things the ocean provided over the winter. The Great-blacked Backed Gulls previously had exclusive use of these carcasses and will now have to figure out how to share with the real undertaker of the skies.
I also had my first Fish Crow of the season yesterday, though most won’t be back until late March or April. This is the nasally voiced coastal cousin of the regular American Crow everyone knows, and they mostly migrate out for the winter. A bunch do winter on the Upper Cape and Martha’s Vineyard so it’s not like the first ones out my way have to go very far, but there has been a clear increase in arrivals on the mid and Outer Cape in the last two weeks.
Our two early migrant shorebirds are the Killdeer, which is a plover, and the American Woodcock, which is an oddity. Killdeer like grassy fields, and have been turning up at airports, ballfields, and the upper reaches of salt marshes in the last two weeks. Some will pass through while others will stay and eventually nest in funny places like the edges of soccer fields, mall rooftops, construction sites, and gravel pits. Their willingness to nest in such places is why they are likely to never be on an endangered species list.
Woodcocks are sort of weird looking, neckless sandpipers, but are unlike any other shorebird. They live in the woods across temperate North America and breed really early. Many know the iconic breeding displays of the males, what with the peenting and the twittering, spiraling upwards flight, then the chirping and plummeting from great heights. You can already hear the dusk displays of these ambitious males in clearings adjacent to woods, even though females probably won’t lay eggs until late March or April.
It’s up to this rogues gallery of late winter migrants to get us through the next few months, so I suggest you learn to love grackles and vultures and the dulcet tones of a peenting woodcock, because the colorful songbird migrants of May are a long ways away…
