The olive-sided flycatcher migrates from Alaska to Brazil

October 14, 2023 4:32 PM

World Migratory Bird Day is October 14. Because birds use magnetic fields to navigate at night during long-distance migrations, severe space weather can throw them off course. Cheyenne Bottoms (KS) is the most popular rest stop for North American migratory shorebirds. Thousands of Vaux's swifts will roost together in a single chimney. Lili Taylor's PSA for the Lights Out for Birds campaign.

Since 1970, nearly all major groups of [North American] native wild birds have shown significant declines in population. The biggest loss is in grassland birds (53.3% loss). Shorebirds, boreal forest birds (e.g. flycatchers), and aerial insectivores (e.g. Vaux's swifts) all have had population losses of over 30%. Data from Birds of Concern.

posted by spamandkimchi (12 comments total)

Shout out to my main bird, the Pacific Golden Plover. I look forward to your return from Alaska and Siberia every year. You boids and the best boids.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:26 PM on October 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

It's not really a migratory bird, but I am happy to say that I can now identify the local hawk as a red-shouldered hawk--a species I can't say I've ever really heard of before. I just assumed the hawks in this area were red-tailed hawks, but apparently not.

Personally, I'd call them pink-breasted hawks because his his underside is such a soft, pretty pink and he doesn't have any red on his shoulders/wings--at least not on the top of his shoulders. His underarm/under-wing area might be red/pink, but I can't say as I don't tend to get a good look at that part of the hawk's anatomy. Usually, he just sits on a branch or (preferably) on the fence, with his wings tucked tight against his body.
posted by sardonyx at 6:02 PM on October 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

They're more reddish-shouldered hawks than red-shouldered hawks. Also note that juvenile red-shouldered hawks have a speckled brown breast. It turns out there are many badly named birds out there (looking at you red-bellied woodpecker), which is generally a consequence of them being named during the age of ornithology-by-shotgun, and being able to look at the killed birds in hand. Despite how common it is to use color to name birds, it can be surprisingly difficult to identify birds using the colors in their names for reasons of age, sex, or time of year.
posted by mollweide at 7:07 PM on October 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

Our association had our Migratory Bird Festival today. One of the things we featured was our Motus station, which can detect birds with Motus tags up to 24 km away. It’s one of the first handful in the Caribbean and we’ve only detected one red knot in almost a year of being live, but we anticipate getting more detections as more birds are tagged.
posted by snofoam at 7:09 PM on October 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Ooh, that's a very pretty woodpecker, mollweide. I'm surprised I haven't seen one around here. There are three or four other types of woodpeckers that frequent these parts, but I've never seen that one--and looking at the map, I'm in the right range.
posted by sardonyx at 7:42 PM on October 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you have any outdoor space at all, you can probably hang a suet feeder. They're just small cages that hold a block of suet that you can probably get at your grocery store for about $2. Woodpeckers love them, and are ace at finding them. If you can hang one out near a window it almost guarantees you'll see woodpeckers from the comfort of your own home. There are even ones you can suction cup to the outside of your windows.
posted by mollweide at 9:20 PM on October 14, 2023

I've had suet feeders. But as I said, there are lots of woodpeckers around. Off the top of my head, I've got Downey, Hairy, and Pileated woodpeckers and Common Flickers.
posted by sardonyx at 10:21 PM on October 14, 2023

Oh, wow, wild. Red-bellied are among the most common here. I had a pileated in my yard once and I nearly fell off of the chair that I was sitting on my deck when it called from a nearby tree. They are in the woods around here but they are not common in town.
posted by mollweide at 10:39 PM on October 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I will play some Wingspan to celebrate.
posted by donio at 1:49 AM on October 15, 2023

Yes, but do any of the articles answer the important question...What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
posted by Chuffy at 8:53 AM on October 15, 2023

I hate to admit it, but I'm terrible at identifying a bird by its call. I just can't do it. Woodpeckers, however, tend to get my attention when I hear the rat-a-tat-tat of them hammering away at the trees, then I pop my head out the window and see if I can spot whoever is making the noise.

I don't want to say Pileateds are common, but they are something I can regularly rely on to show up. This year, however, I'd say their numbers are down.

I didn't see any cedar waxwings this year, although I'm informed that I just missed them. Admittedly, I've spent less time outside this year than in the past few years, so that's possible, but even if they did show up, they didn't come in the numbers I've seen in the past. They have always been pretty common, and they're some of the birds I really enjoy watching.

The flickers only made a really late appearance this year--as in I just noticed them for the first time a couple of weeks ago. They're usually around for most of the season.

The usual crop of blue jays, robins and cardinals were all present. The gold finches showed up, but once again, in smaller numbers that usual. The starlings had a good showing this year, and the blackbirds were around in decent numbers. I think there were fewer crows this year, but maybe I just missed most of them. The usual group of mourning doves showed up. The hummingbirds were around, but I suspect their numbers were down a bit.

I'm not as good at identifying small brown birds, i.e. the different types of sparrows--there are house sparrows, but there might also be some white crowned sparrows--or small black and white birds (chickadees, nuthatches and juncos). There are some small brown bird with red patches that looks like a female common redpoll but I've never ever seen anything that looks like a male, so I have no idea what that bird actually is.

Last year's pair of mallards, which were first time residents, decided not to return this year but I have no idea why they showed up in the first place.

There are probably some I'm forgetting or some I've misidentified, but I think that's a fairly accurate representation of this year's bird population--at least to date.
posted by sardonyx at 10:48 AM on October 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm glad that Snofoam mentioned Motus above! The technology is amazing. Basically, tiny birdie backpacks with radio transmitters are giving us unprecedented ability to follow and understand the behavior of migrating animals. The Motus Data Dashbord and Audubon's Bird Migration Explorer are two fascinating tools to help visualize today's high-tech migratory data.
posted by hessie at 6:18 AM on October 16, 2023