May is not an easy time to be a bird guy. First of all, there are suddenly way too many things going on in the bird world all at once – choosing a bird report topic is dreadfully difficult this time of year. Also, there isn’t enough time to get out and enjoy the all-too-brief onslaught of migrants mid-May brings, what with pesky job and family duties. But don’t you cry for me, Cape and Islands, I will persevere. Luckily, there are so many migrants passing through that at least some visit me right in my very own yard.
At the beginning of the month, the usual neighborhood suspects arrived on schedule from their warm winter quarters in Central and South America – Baltimore Orioles, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Gray Catbirds, Great-crested Flycatchers, and House Wrens. Once those local breeders are in place, it’s time to wait for the pass-through migrants, the grab bag of more northerly breeding songbirds that just pass through here and are much less predictable than those local breeders.
On Monday I got my first few of these transients in my yard in Harwich. After the morning rain ended I poked my head out the door and immediately heard Northern Paulas, Black-and-white Warblers, and the lazy buzzy notes of a Black-throated Blue Warbler. I thought I caught the hurried notes of a Wilson’s Warbler, a species I hadn’t recorded in my yard since May of 2020. I headed out, eventually finding the Wilson’s Warbler, entirely bright yellow except a trim black yarmulke of a cap, in my front yard shrubs – a rare May treat. This bird is on its way to Eastern Canada most likely, having wintered in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. But in this moment it was chest high in my rhododendron, and I felt lucky to have this weary little traveler to myself.
Yesterday morning, after issuing my sleeping kids their first warning jostling around 6:20, I poked my head out the door to see if there were any new arrivals overnight. I quickly heard two – first the distinctive two-part trill of a Nashville Warbler then the halting whistled phrases of a Blue-headed Vireo. I looked in eBird just now and saw that I had both species in the yard on May 12 last year as well – it’s not out of the question that these are the same birds. I also heard several Northern Parulas, always the most common migrant warbler here, and the squeaky bike tire song of a Black-and White Warbler – both could have been new arrivals, but were more likely holdovers from yesterday, staying another day to fatten on little green caterpillars in the newly leafing oaks lining my neighborhood.
If I had gone to work at Wellfleet Bay sanctuary a little sooner yesterday I might have seen the Canada Warbler reported by the bird banding crew, an especially long-distance migrant just in from as far away as southern Peru. Though mainly yellow and gray like many warblers, they rank among the handsomest in my estimation, with pale spectacles and an ornate black necklace of dangling pearls imparting an elegance most birds would envy. But I can only be so many places in May.
In a couple of weeks this remarkable parade of colorful, hemisphere wandering minstrels will be over, so whether you run your Merlin app on your back deck or get up early to drive to your local migrant trap, now is the time to do it, if you can. I of course will be stuck working, wishing I could get out and bird. Oh wait – I just remembered I work at a bird sanctuary – sweet!
