This process has been going on for weeks. Rufous hummingbirds were among
the first to arrive in March along with tree and violet-green swallows.
On March 18, a small flock of Townsend’s warblers skittered through
the tree tops near my home staying just long enough to pick insects from
the blooming madrones before continuing north. Two days later, a yellow-rumped
warbler awakened me with its song. By April 6, I heard the undulating
trill of an orange-crowned warbler and smiled. The breeding season was
at hand.
A few days
ago I drove to American Camp to see how the shift in seasons was progressing.
I missed the bubbling chatter of the meadowlarks, but rebounded when I
heard the faint song of a savannah sparrow newly arrived from southern
climes. I found it perched on a lichen-covered boulder. The newcomer’s
thin, reedy call floated across the prairie. Within minutes, more of the
buffy brown birds with the golden lores appeared on fence railings and
outcroppings adding their voices to the sparse spring chorus.
Next, I spied
a kestrel hover hunting by the Redoubt. The little falcon is a common
spring migrant stopping on the plain for a few hours (or days) of refueling
before moving on. In the background, I listened to the strains of white-crowned
sparrows announcing their arrival. They will replace the golden-crowned
sparrows that wintered here and now are heading out. My visit to the prairie
was complete when I saw a pair of American goldfinch bound over the grass
toward the shoreline, then heard a common yellowthroat calling "wichity
-wichity" from a thicket of Nootka rose.
Some of our
most visible migrants are shorebirds, lithe beings who set upon the wind
for journeys that sometimes take them from the tip of the southern hemisphere
to the top of the world. I ended my bird survey with a visit to False
Bay, an important stopover for them.
The bay’s curvaceous shoreline wraps around a variety of intertidal
habitats where massive numbers of marine organisms including microscopic
algae, worms, clams, mussels, tiny crabs and shrimp thrive in the sand,
gravel and muck. The mud-dwellers are part of a protein-packed food chain
that feeds tens of thousands of birds each year.
Among the
hundreds of Thayer’s, Bonaparte’s and mew gulls dozing on
the flats before starting their own migration, the high-strung greater
yellowlegs made a dominant impression. Five long-legged waders raced about
knee deep in a tidal stream stirring up tiny fish and crustacean and nabbing
them with their long, slender bills.
At the tide
line, a small flock of dunlins, easily recognized by their black belly
patches and hunchbacked profiles, were picking at the mud for tiny shrimps,
worms and insects. Not far away, I heard killdeer ranting, and in the
distance the piercing screams of black oystercatchers hurtling onto the
rocks at the mouth of the bay staying well out of the flight path of a
flock of pintails.
The signature bird of the flats is the western sandpiper. The entire world
population of this species migrates along the Pacific Coast and while
the San Juans are a minor stop on their itinerary, it is still a crucial
habitat for some individuals. The one hundred or so sandpipers I saw may
have flown in from as far afield as South America on their way to breeding
grounds in the arctic; not a small feat for a sparrow-sized bird that
weights less than an ounce.
I had hoped
to find more shorebirds at the bay but some days are quiet. Other times
thousands of shorebirds including whimbrel, dowitchers and plovers descend
upon the monotone scape in a feeding frenzy. Once refueled and rested,
they cast again upon the wind bound for the northern lights. |