As I write, it is March 8, and here in New York, we are entering a series of warm days that may well mark the official entrance of spring. These warm days have been proceeded by various more subtle clues, such as various birds like the Northern Cardinal and Song Sparrow beginning to sing (we'll speak more about that in a moment) and showing other early courtship behaviors. However, many people do not really notice the entrance of spring until the first really warm days.
Birders most especially have strong feelings about spring. These feelings could be diagnosed as
Anxious for the Coming of Migrants Disorder, or simply
ACMD. Symptoms include, at least for me, obsessive flipping through of
The Warbler Guide, constantly having hallucinations of warblers and the inability to think about anything other than spring migration.
Actually, many people feel a yearning for spring, and perhaps what birders feel is just a more intense version of the same thing. Allow me to quote Kenneth Grahame in the immortal "Wind in the Willows":
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring- cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said "Bother!" and "O blow!" and also "Hang spring-cleaning!" and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, `Up we go! Up we go!' till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.
"This is fine!" he said to himself. "This is better than whitewashing!" The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side.
As you can see, a sort of spring restlessness is well-documented in classic literature. Look at Henry David Thoreau and his "Journal", a diary of his time at Walden Pond. In it, he recorded the exact leafing and blooming dates of many plants and other signs of spring. This data was then used
for scientific purposes many years later.
Inspired by this, I have been keeping records this year of my observations on the coming of spring, noting the first dates I heard which birds singing and also the temperature, precipitation, etc. (no flowers have bloomed yet in my area, but I will note when they do). Perhaps one day my notes will be used for scientific purposes as well.
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Let's return to "The Wind in the Willows" again, specifically to this passage:
"This is fine!" he said to himself. "This is better than whitewashing!" The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout.
The carol of happy birds! The singing of birds is perhaps the most welcome characteristic of spring, second to the flowers blooming.
But it's more than just a happy sound. Birders can and do use song as a major identification key; in many situations it is even more important than appearance. Don't believe me? You try identifying a tiny bird flitting around at the top of a tall tree based on whether or not it has wing bars! But just wait for the bird to sing and you could have the answer without ever looking up.
In "The Verb: To Bird", Peter Cashwell argues that knowing songs and calls is the line that separates causal bird watchers from hardcore birders. The prospect of learning songs seems to put off a lot of people. However, fear not: let me present my method.
What I've done is put all the songs of all the Northeastern Spring Migrants on my iPod. Then, I put a few common ones in a playlist and listen to them, while looking at the picture of the bird (to associate the bird's appearance with it's song in my head) and the
spectrograms found in "The Warbler Guide". Then, I play through them and try to name them without looking. As I learn them, I add more.
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| Some of the warbler songs in my playlist |
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Descriptions of songs can be very helpful! If you
don't agree, listen to this recording of a Blackpoll
and see if it sounds like the description. |
Good luck with learning songs! It will greatly increase your birding success this spring.
