CELEBRATE MIGRATORY BIRDS DAY ON MAY 12th : This Year’s Theme is “Connecting People to Bird Conservation”
May 9th, 2012 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
(WESTERN TANAGER)
This month is for the birds!
May marks the return of many birds to or through Washington, making backyard and other nearby viewing a veritable showcase of color and song.
(CALLIOPE HUMMINGBIRD)
Everything from Canada geese to calliope hummingbirds is busy in some stage of courting, breeding, nesting, or rearing young – or is on its way to traditional spring and summer range even further north.
Those birds that remain in Washington year-round – like the chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, finches and other species regularly seen at backyard winter feeding stations – are also suddenly brighter in color and singing to establish breeding and nesting territories, going through mating rituals, and building new nests or remodeling old ones.
But it’s the “neo-tropical” species that winter in Central or South America that return or pass through now, triggered mostly by longer daylight hours, that especially catch our eye with exotic flashes of yellow, red, blue and other hues.
(WILSON’S WARBLER)
Warblers are some of the most noticeable and numerous — orange-crowned, yellow-rumped, black-throated gray, Townsend’s, yellow, MacGillivray’s, Wilson’s, and common yellowthroat.
(VIOLET GREEN SWALLOW)
Our many swallow species, several named for nesting preferences, grab attention with their aerial acrobatics – tree, violet-green, bank, cliff, northern rough-winged, barn, and purple martins.
And of course backyard birders who provide sugar water in feeders are delighting in the return of our hummingbirds – black-chinned, Anna’s, calliope, and rufous.
Other neotropicals are just as bright or melodious, including ruby-crowned kinglets, mountain and western bluebirds, Swainson’s, hermit and varied thrushes, western tanagers, black-headed grosbeaks, lazuli buntings, yellow-headed blackbirds, Bullock’s orioles, house wrens, Vaux’s and white-throated swifts, and chipping, Brewer’s, lark, fox, savannah, Lincoln’s, vesper, and white-crowned sparrows.
(BLACK HEADED GROSBEAK)
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT INTL. MIGRATORY BIRD DAY GO TO : http://www.birdday.org/
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT NORTH AMERICA’s MIGRATION FLYWAYS GO TO:
http://birding.about.com/od/birdingbasics/ss/North-America-Migration-Flyways.htm
TO LEARN ABOUT WAYS TO HELP BIRDS, GO TO: http://www.fws.gov/birds/imbd/
SEATTLE AUDUBON MIGRATORY BIRD DAY EVENT:
Seattle International Migratory Bird Day at Magnuson Park
May 12, 2012
10 a.m to 3 p.m.
Dennis Paulson, PhD, with Seattle Audubon will speak at 1 p.m. about Bird Migration at The Brig.
FUN (Finding Urban Nature) Kids Activities – 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. at The Brig – Family Friendly
Poster sessions, at The Brig (10 a.m. – 3 p.m.): Bats NW, Seattle Audubon, Heron Habitat Helpers, Green Seattle Partnership, Earthcorps, Magnuson Park Nature Programs, Seattle Parks Wildlife Sanctuary Program
