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| A vestige of autumn--a sweetgum ball--hanging on a limb with new spring leaf buds. Note the spring foliage in the background, as well. |
If you’ve been a birder for a while, then data that you
collected in previous years can serve as a guide to what birds you might expect
to see on any given day in the spring.
That said, there is also an element of unpredictability, which helps to keep
things exciting. After my walk, I
started thinking about my early days as a birder: what sorts of observations
had I made on this date, several years ago?
I looked through some of my old field notebooks to find out!
Revisiting these old notes turned out to be more interesting
than I anticipated. Since I started
birdwatching in May 2000, the first spring in which I really paid attention to
birds was 2001. As it turns out, I
did bird on March 31, 2001. I was with other
Okatibbee Creek Audubon Society birders at Tallahala Wildlife Management Area,
in Bienville National Forest. This was a
noteworthy day for me because I not only saw Wild Turkeys during the car trip
to Tallahala, but I spotted my first-ever Belted Kingfisher—a male bird (lacking
rust-red belly strap of the female) perched on a power line over a pool of water,
just north of Meridian. It’s a common
species, yes, but it was a “life bird” for me back then, and I remember how
cool it was that I could see the white dot in front of the kingfisher’s eye and
the bristly crest on the somewhat comically oversized, slate blue head.
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| This kingfisher was photographed on December 31, 2015 at Choctaw Lake, MS. Similar position on the wire, but viewed from the back, unlike my "lifer" Belted Kingfisher. |
I wasn’t able to see very much on the actual field trip,
unfortunately—I suppose that I had yet to develop the birder’s skill of
tracking down tiny, fast-moving songbirds moving through tall trees and tangled
branches. My birding mentor
pointed out the thin, high-pitched songs of a few newly-arrived migratory
species, including Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Northern Parula, and Black-and-white
Warbler, but since I wasn’t very good with birdsong identification, either, I
didn’t end up adding those species to my life list until quite a while
later. It was still a pleasant trip,
though, in part because the woods were so beautiful with all of the trees
either in blossom or just leafing out, and wildflowers filling in the sunny gaps on the forest floor.
On the drive back from Tallahala, I saw a Wood Duck (another lifer,
technically, although I had definitely observed this species a number of times before
I became a birder), Great Egrets, and Barn Swallows. Not bad for a beginner, I guess!
March 31 wound up being significant again during the next year,
2002. By that point, I had studied bird
sounds from both the old Thayer birding software and a CD of 50 common species
recorded by Lang Elliott, so I was much better at auditory identification of
birds. I was eager to put my new
abilities to use, so I got up early in the morning and spent some time waiting
for migratory songbirds at the edge of the woods on my family’s property in
Collinsville. Although I wasn’t sure exactly
what to expect, I had a feeling that the mixed, shrubby woods on our land might
be good for Black-and-white Warblers at this time of year. Sure enough, after five minutes or so, I
heard the squeaky wee-see-wee-see-wee-see song of a male
Black-and-white. I spished loudy, and the warbler came closer to investigate.
Another life bird!
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| It looked just like this Black-and-white Warbler that I photographed in Arkansas on March 25, 2014. The northwestern Arkansas woods were nowhere near as green at that time as springtime Mississippi woods, though. |
Interestingly, I also saw a pair of Wood Ducks flying through
the backyard on this day, exactly a year after my “life bird” sighting in 2001. We didn’t have ponds on the property, but a
few of the neighbors did. Even so, Wood
Ducks coming through the yard were definitely not a daily occurrence.
Although I birded even more during 2003 than I had in
previous years, I don’t have any field notes from the specific date of March
31, 2003. March 31, 2004, however, has
an entry. By this time, I was living in
Macon, Mississippi, so the progression of spring migrants may have been a day
or two behind that of the more southerly Collinsville. The habitat was different too—much more open
and orchard-like. And, of course, every
year brings slightly different weather, which can affect bird migration. On March 31, 2004, the weather was cool and
windy. I saw the usual resident Brown
Thrashers, Northern Mockingbirds, and Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers—very similar
to my March 31 list for this year, actually!
Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets flew overhead during the day, though,
and there were also two Yellow-crowned Night-Herons early in the evening. Night-herons—and Yellow-crowned Night-Herons
in particular—usually are not found in northeastern Mississippi throughout the
year, but instead arrive there in the spring and depart in the fall.
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| Brown Thrasher -- March 30, 2018 |
Other migrants on this day in 2004 were Cedar Waxwings, in a
flock of about 10, and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers—one species about to check out
and head northward to nest, the other just arriving to nest in Mississippi. Going and coming. As you may remember, those species made my
2018 list, as well. Is it a
surprising coincidence? Not really. Both of these birds are typicallly quite
common this time of year. Still, it’s both
fascinating and rewarding to see these patterns and connections in birdlife over
the years. If you have older field notes
of your own, or access to someone else’s old records, I strongly recommend taking
the time to look at them anew.
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| Blue-gray Gnatcatcher April 12, 2014, in Arkansas. The species is very common in the breeding season. |
