For lovers of birds, May is a special time. Full-time residents remain, transitioned in spring from survival mode to mating, nesting and marking territory with song. Winter birds that recently crowded the feeders now splash and preen in the birdbath—cardinals,

Cardinal

robins, house and gold finches—but now they share the water with new arrivals.

house finch

Other permanent residents gracing greening grass and trees or soaring above include nuthatches, blue jays, crows, downy, hairy and red-bellied woodpeckers, various sparrows, chickadees, cedar waxwings, turkeys, ring-necked pheasants, red-tailed hawks, turkey vultures, eagles and more.

red tailed hawk

A few regulars have reinvented themselves for spring; the goldfinch, for example, has traded drab winter feathers for brilliant yellow.

But if this United Nations of birds isn’t enough to cheer the heart—and it is—spring has brought new nations to our door—birds that winter in Mexico, Central America and our southern states. Yesterday, a goldfinch and a robin were followed at the bath by newly-arrived eastern bluebirds and a spotted towhee.

towhee

I grabbed the camera, though as usual, too late. But I may have another chance; two pairs of bluebirds have moved into houses in our yard, and the towhees are nesting nearby.

Among other returning migrants—what South Dakotans who spend the colder months in Texas or Arizona might call “snowbirds,” are the red-winged blackbird, blue-winged teal, wood duck, belted kingfisher, great blue heron, flicker, meadow lark, dickcissel, killdeer, eastern kingbird, house wren, mourning dove and brown thrasher. Blue-winged teals share the ponds with wood ducks—perhaps the continent’s most dramatically colored duck, and kingfishers and herons search for fish and frogs.

kingfisher

Blackbirds nest in cattails below the pond, their shrill cry audible for a quarter mile. Flickers join year-around woodpeckers in hammering for insects, while meadow larks, dickcissels, killdeers, eastern kingbirds, house wrens, mourning doves and brown thrashers fill the meadows and woods. But one thing every bird has in common: this is the season to mate, build a nest, lay eggs and feed a brood of young. No other season is so filled with activity and song.

A few regular summer residents I have yet to see or hear. I have heard the wondrous repertoire of the brown thrasher, but have not heard the catcalls of his less conspicuous cousin, the catbird. The woodpecker clan will not be complete until red-head arrives. The tree swallows that last summer occupied one of the bluebird houses have not yet returned. The loggerhead shrike may not show up until he can find fat grasshoppers to impale on barbed wire and thorns. Our greening trees will not reach full adornment until yellow-billed cuckoos, rose-breasted grosbeaks and Baltimore and orchard orioles arrive. And summer will not be complete until night is filled with the plaintive whip-poor-will’s call.

As I thrill with sightings and songs, search for nesting places of familiar birds and new arrivals and await the homecoming of still-anticipated friends, I also watch for the unexpected—the stop-over of birds who prefer northern climes to our bountiful bluff, like the yellow-rumped warbler who sang from the rim of the birdbath this morning, resting at the half-way point in his journey from a southern state to his summer home in Canada or Alaska. Like all of us in the larger sense, birds and humans alike, he is just passing through. May our own life journeys produce as much joy in the hearts of others.

–Jerry

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