Finding and Feeding Birds in the Fall

The end of summer brings an air of urgency to all creatures, wild or human. There are so many things to do and the time for doing them is now short. We expect the weather to turn on us like the winds from the far north, and eventually it does.

Those winds are now delayed as we enjoy mild air from the south. This pattern of warmer, calmer autumns has been going on for the last 10-15 years, perhaps lulling us into a less frenetic fall. Even the migration of birds seems slower as the seeds ripen and the last insect hatches occur under balmy skies.

It is a bountiful time and the birds cannot be blamed for taking their leisure as they store fat before the long trip to the tropics. Even those that do not migrate are both well fed and restless at the same time. The chickadees and titmice may not migrate far, but they do disperse and move around, settling into new areas.

Perhaps this explains the constant calls coming to me lately, asking, "Where are all the birds? They have disappeared from the yard and feeders." When reminded it is migration time, they protest that their birds do not migrate. Perhaps some do not, but even the sedentary species move around more than we think.

Many of the hardier birds that eat seeds begin to flock and migrate in October. The blackbirds are already filling the evening skies in flocks of hundreds or thousands. Blue jays are joining together too, although their big movement also seems to be delayed.

These birds move quietly or very short distances, but they all have plenty to eat now at harvest time. Keep those feeders stocked and wait patiently for their return. There may not be as many as usual if the cold, wet summer reduced their breeding success, but fewer or not, they will be looking for food when the wild harvest finally dwindles.

Keep offering hummingbird nectar in case a rare or lingering hummingbird shows up. It appears that the long saga of Rufie the rufous hummingbird is finally at an end. She was let go from her winter greenhouse shelter in early May, but the Agawam yard where she has reappeared in late summer is still empty and cheerless this year.

It is time to hang out the suet again, for the woodpeckers seem to be calling in the yard more often, looking for fresh white suet, not the fat turned black and soft from the heat of summer. Some thistle feeders have attracted goldfinches all summer and continue to do so, but others have been deserted by this notorious wanderer. Keep the feeders hanging and hope a few finches will wander to your yard.

Any hanging or post feeder should have only thistle or sunflower in it, the mixed seed reserved for spreading thinly on the ground and replacing when it is gone. If you have only hordes of house sparrows, you may want to forego feeding any mixed seed at all.

If you get really desperate for your absent birds, why not take a walk and bring those binoculars? Except for your feeders, the average suburban yard is a desolate sterile wasteland with bushes and grasses cut and cropped before their seeding time.

Find a place where the weeds grow and come to seed, or the trees and bushes are allowed to become ragged and bear fruit. There is the harvest both bugs and birds have found, disdaining the sad and ugly lawns that provide nothing for them.

Even the public parks are usually over groomed to fit the modern taste for neatness. Only the last of the tropical migrants flitting in the treetops will be found there. If it is a city park or cemetery, the birds are there because the trees are the only place to find any food at all in the urban landscape.

The best places are the overgrown fields or meadows, the hedgerows, waste lots or community gardens gone to seed, the woodlots left to fend for themselves, or the power lines undrenched with herbicide. Find the rich harvest of fall, and there your birds will be.