I don’t know about you, but my feeders have been getting swarmed lately. For several days I have been seeing a huge increase in customers – I’m having trouble keeping things stocked up. It’s not just more birds, but the waves of visitors are more frequent, with practically no breaks between the multi-species hordes. It’s been like that for days. And of course, the reason for all the activity is…I actually have no idea. It’s a bit early for some of these species to be moving in numbers, and I’m not seeing any evidence others are seeing what I’m seeing, even at the usual early spring migration spots like Beech Forest in Provincetown or High Head in Truro.
First came the huge spike in my Yellow-rumped Warblers. All winter I’ve had one or two of these hardy winter warblers visit my suet feeders daily. Though these birds flock together in winter, my birds seemed to not like each other, typically arriving and departing from different directions, and squabbling when they happened to arrive at the same time. I’d love to know the back story – the feud probably started with a conversation about politics. But suddenly, not quite two weeks ago, the two became more than ten Yellow-rumped Warblers, more than I’ve ever seen here. Yesterday it was up to 15. I can only wonder if my two feuding regulars were among them, or if these were all new.
I don’t expect a surge of Yellow-rumps - sometimes called butter-butts by those who tend towards the cutesie – until mid-April, when they pass through in large numbers en route to more northerly, coniferous zones to breed. These are short-distance migrants compared to most warblers, so they arrive later in fall and earlier in spring. But March is early even for them. Some winter here most years, hugging the coast, especially if the crop of cedar and/or bayberry fruits is good.
My Yellow-rumps typically arrive in a mixed flock that includes at least two bluebirds, a flicker, and a few Pine Warblers, all focused on my suet feeders. Most of these feed on the ground where chunks of suet collect from the messy hammering of the woodpeckers. I even have a junco that’s developed a taste for suet, something I don’t think I’ve ever seen, and he gets right up on the feeder just like the woodpeckers. This is why I love birds, after decades of watching them, even common yard birds are endlessly surprising.
I’ve also seen a surge in American Goldfinches this week, another common bird whose movements mystify me, but they are not the finches I want to talk about. For some reason I’ve had a good winter for Purple Finches at my feeders, meaning I have seen more than zero – just a couple here and there is a big increase for me. But in the last week I suddenly have them every day, all day, and on Monday there were at least 8. The best part is they have sometimes been singing their lovely, rollicking song above my deck. Many confuse them with ubiquitous House Finches, but Purple Finches are never common. They breed sparsely in Massachusetts and are rapidly declining despite forest cover having increased, likely retreating north with climate change.
Like politics, all birding is local – what I’m seeing in my yard is not what you can expect to see. I clicked around in eBird to see that no one is reporting large numbers of these species, even nearby neighbors of mine in East Harwich. Is my yard suddenly a critical stopover on the Atlantic flyway? Of course, it may also be because other birders are actually out birding while I’m home tending a kid with a five-day flu, with only bird feeders and kid shows for entertainment. The increased birds have been helpful, but I’m getting a little stir crazy. If I’m stuck here one more day, I may hallucinate myself a first state record.
