In birding terms, May is fleeting beauty. May quickly ages into June, and the bejeweled migrant warblers that adorned our trees for a few weeks move on to more northerly forests to breed.
And by June our brightly colored spring shorebirds like the vividly orange and black Ruddy Turnstones and Dunlin have moved (way) on to high Arctic tundra to make their nests. In fact, a sure sign of summer has already arrived in the form of the first Great Shearwaters off of Provincetown.
But if you’re into warblers, it ain't over yet. I was pleased that my neighborhood oaks attracted Bay-breasted and Blackburnian warblers over the last week. Both are among the true stunners of the songbird world, and neither species stays here to breed, making them especially sought after by Cape and Islands birders this month. Most birders will make pilgrimages to the Beech Forest in Provincetown to get their warbler fix, but any yard with enough oaks and other deciduous trees can produce migrant warblers, especially if you know what to listen for.
Northern Parulas, tiny but chromatically potent in their cadet blue, yellow, and red breeding attire, can be especially common migrants and may indicate other warbler species are present. Listen for their rising buzzy song from deciduous trees anywhere. Blackpoll Warblers, extreme marathoners in the migrating bird world, have been passing through on their way from Brazil to the spruce forests of Canada in the last two weeks. Their exceedingly high pitched song, which, if you can even hear it you might pass off as an insect or a squeaky bicycle wheel, sadly heralds the end of warbler migration. Because my brain is always tuned to the “All Birds, All the Time,” station, I have been hearing these a lot this week whenever I’m driving with the windows open.
Several interesting birds have made appearances in the last week, and Both Bell’s Neck Conservation Area in West Harwich and Nantucket have produced some fancy birds. A Black-necked Stilt, an improbably lanky, seemingly tuxedo-clad sandpiper of more southerly climes, turned up at Bell’s Neck last week and has drawn flocks of birders, who were already swarming there to see a rare Tricolored Heron.
On Nantucket, birders have turned up a Red-headed Woodpecker and a Cerulean Warbler in recent days. The Red-headed Woodpecker is a rare visitor to the area, and is certainly our best looking woodpecker in the Eastern US. While many backyard birdwatchers mistakenly use the name Red-headed Woodpecker for our more common resident Red-bellied Woodpeckers, one look at an actual Red-headed and their brilliant, entirely shiny-red head, will reveal that they alone deserve the moniker. But Nantucket’s Cerulean Warbler discovered on Saturday clearly shows that the migration pipeline still has few surprises, as this is one of the most sought-after migrants in all of warblerdom.
Indeed, we still have a few days to enjoy the last of the songbird migration. So gather ye warblers while ye may, because it won’t be May much longer.
