When I flew to New Hampshire on September 23, my yard teemed
with mid-fall migrants. Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers flitted about in the
trees. Robins and a variety of other thrushes filled the fruit trees and shrubs
throughout my neighborhood. Blue Jays lined up along every edge of every
feeder, the overflow waiting their turns up in the trees. I kept my window
feeder filled with both sunflower seeds and peanuts. Most jays look at that as
a lucky find, but a couple seemed to figure out that I was the peanut lady and
would fly in the moment I appeared. As fun as it is to have jays that recognize
and approach me, I’m hoping those are migrants rather than birds that will
stick around all winter, because I’m going to be out of town quite a bit and
don’t want to disappoint them when I’m not here. Russ is great at keeping the
feeders stocked when I’m gone, but he often leaves for work while it’s still
dark and doesn’t get back until after dark. I’m pretty even-keeled about squirrels
in most of my feeders, but chase them out of my window feeder—something Russ
can’t do from work—so I’m leery of asking him to leave peanuts when I’m not
there to keep track of who is taking them.
My yard also had the usual suspects—chickadees, a few Mourning
doves and woodpeckers, one or two White-breasted Nuthatches, and a bazillion
Red-breasted Nuthatches. But the birds that were stopping passersby because
they were so very abundant and active last week were the sparrows. I counted
200 White-throated Sparrows at a time on Saturday the 22nd, along with a few
Harris’s and Fox Sparrows and one Lincoln’s. Several White-crowned Sparrows
were seen at Hawk Ridge, just above my neighborhood, but I hadn’t found one in
my own yard yet. I felt sad taking off at the peak of the mid-season migration,
knowing how fleeting it is.
Sure enough, when I returned on September 30, I still have
lots of robins and jays, but only a fraction of the number I had a week earlier
and no other thrushes at all. Some Blue Jays and a handful of robins may remain
into the winter, but most have moved on. I still have a dozen or so sparrows,
most still White-throated Sparrows, but now juncos and an American Tree Sparrow
have replaced the Harris’s, Fox, and Lincoln’s Sparrows. Temperatures were
balmy and leaf color gorgeous when I returned, but a true changing of the guard
took place while I was out of town.
Little by little, winter will take over and most of the
birds I’m seeing right now will vanish. I’m headed back out of town, to
California, tomorrow. I’ll be gone only five days this time, and although the
weather is supposed to be more wintry later in the week, I expect some of these
late fall birds will still be here when I return. There should be more juncos
next week than this, and with luck, a handful will remain for the duration. But
I’m not counting on it. Every year’s adjustment to winter is a sorrowful process
of relinquishing, one by one, the plants and animals that defined the riches of
summer and autumn. Winter will bring its own treasures and pleasures, frozen
intensity making up for the tinier species composition. It’s always an
adjustment to send species after species south or under cover with so few to
take their place, but even this dwindling is strangely comforting. As Rachel
Carson noted, “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains
of nature--the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the
winter.” And as climate change proceeds apace, I am finding reassurance in
every sign of good old-fashioned frozen winter.
