Category Archives: For the Birds column

For the Birds: Rain or not, birds have to eat

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Photo by Chris Bosak
A soggy blue jay visits a feeder during a heavy rain in New England.

A major storm blew through New England the evening of the Fourth of July, but it was the weather event that happened two days later that caught my attention.

It was a work-from-home day, so I had a front-row seat to the feeders all day. I thought it was going to be a slow day as it rained heavily all day. And the action was slow, at first.

After a few hours of relentless teeming rain, the birds started coming again. Not surprisingly, the first birds to show up in the rain were cardinals. They are usually the first to show up in the morning and the last ones left as darkness settles in, so it was only fitting that they would appear first on this wet, soggy day.

The blue jays appeared not long after. Then the catbirds, then the chickadees and titmice. At this point, all of the birds appeared at the feeder looking like drowned rats. Remember, this wasn’t a gentle shower where the water would bead up nicely on the birds’ oily feathers and eventually roll away. This was a driving rain that soaked right through the layers of feathers.

So why were the birds out during this rain? Why not remain hunkered down until the rain passed? 

The answer, of course, is that they were hungry. Birds have a high metabolism and need to eat a lot to get through the hours and days. It is estimated that small songbirds eat between 25 and 35 percent of their body weight each day. The rain had been steady for hours and wasn’t going to let up anytime soon. 

Birds face many risk-reward dilemmas in their lifetimes. Migrate and face the inherent dangers of traveling great distances, or remain up north and risk freezing during the winter? Fight, flight, or hide when a predator is near?

In this case, the possibility of starving finally outweighed the potential pitfalls of venturing out in a heavy rain. Other than their ragged appearance, the birds did not appear stressed. It was business as usual.

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For the Birds: Yellow warbler no more; warbling vireo no more

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Photo by Chris Bosak
A warbling vireo sings from a perch in New England.

Last year I wrote about finding a house wren and not being able to find it on the eBird list only to discover that the name of the bird had been officially changed to northern house wren.

Well, this year, there were two more similar name changes. First, the yellow warbler is now the northern yellow warbler. I think most people will continue to call it yellow warbler for years to come, but the familiar, loquacious yellow bird that nests throughout New England is, indeed, now the northern yellow warbler. 

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For the Birds: Summer is for birding

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Photo by Chris Bosak
Yellow warbler at Huntington State Park, Redding, CT. Yellow warblers are common summer sightings throughout New England.

Summer gets a bad rap for birdwatching.

Sure, it’s not as exciting as the spring migration when every day is a new discovery and a whirlwind of birding activity, but the summer has its own rewards. The most exciting part of summer birdwatching, of course, is discovering nesting activity and watching young birds grow. There’s much more to summer birdwatching, however.

First, let’s acknowledge some of the challenges to birdwatching in the summer. Finding a bird in the woods becomes extremely difficult as the leaves are out in full force. You can drive yourself batty trying to find an eastern wood pewee high atop a leafed-out maple or oak.

Birds are also much less vocal in the summer than they are in the spring. Very often in birdwatching, birds are heard before they are seen. You hear a bird, look in that direction, and you find the bird. It’s not always that easy, for sure, but you get the idea. In the summer, birds don’t always give us that verbal cue, making it much more difficult to spot them. Birds don’t want to be seen in the summer, as they are on nests or raising young. The last thing they want is to be discovered, so they remain hidden and silent.

Finally, birdwatching hours in the summer are not conducive to late sleepers or those who turn in early. The long days mean that the sun rises early and sets late. True of all seasons, the best time to watch birds in the summer is early morning or evening. By 9 a.m., the sun is already high and harsh in the sky, and the temperature is rising. You can still find birds in the afternoon, but even the birds seek out shade when it’s too hot.

Now on to the good stuff.

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For the Birds: Wrapping up the warbler season

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Photo by Chris Bosak – A northern parula sings from the top of a shrub in New England this spring.

Now that the spring migration is over, at least for the most part, it’s time to turn our attention to summer birdwatching.

Before we do that, I want to recap my spring birdwatching highlights. Spring highlights often begin and end with warblers, and this spring was no exception, although some non-warblers are certainly worthy of inclusion here.

It was another good spring for warblers. I’ll get into some of the less common ones later in the column, but the warblers that are often seen in New England did not disappoint. Yellow warblers were, and continue to be, seemingly around every corner. Their ubiquitous song is inescapable. (Not that I’d want to escape it in the first place.)

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For the Birds: Don’t miss the action this spring

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Photo by Chris Bosak
Yellow warbler at Huntington State Park, Redding, CT, May 2026.

Spring migration continues to work its magic. 

My walks have been filled with migrants, including a few FOYs (first of years) each time I go out. On one recent walk, I saw a veery, red-eyed vireo, and American redstart, all firsts of the year. It’s always nice to see birds for the first time since last spring, summer or fall. 

The feeling is a little different for birds that we know are just passing through and won’t nest here. Of course, it’s always nice to see the first rose-breasted grosbeak, scarlet tanager, Baltimore oriole or ruby-throated hummingbird, but we know they will nest locally, and we will have plenty more chances to see them over the next several months.

Some birds, however, especially select warblers, will not nest locally, so if we miss them during their short window of passing through New England, we have to wait until fall to try to catch a glimpse of them as they pass through during their southern flight. If we miss that opportunity, our next chance will be the following spring.

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For the Birds: Nesting season has its ups and downs

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Photo by Chris Bosak
A northern flicker hollows out a hole in a snag for a potential nest site, New England, April 2026.

While the majority of spring migrants are still working their way north, many of New England’s year-round birds are already getting down to the business of nesting.

I’m sure I’ll see plenty of nesting activity as the spring progresses, but last week I witnessed two interesting scenes related to nesting. 

The first was in my backyard. As I approached one of my birdfeeders to throw in a handful of safflower seed, I noticed a northern flicker dart off into the woods. Its white rump patch gave away its identification. I was fairly certain the flicker had been clinging to a topped-off dead tree a dozen or so yards away from the feeder, and I made a note to approach the feeder more carefully next time.

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For the Birds: The shore comes through again

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Photo by Chris Bosak – A male piping plover (background) moves toward a female plover at Milford Point, April 2026.

The spring migration has certainly begun, but it is still in the building-up phase.

I took a few walks in the woods over the last few days and saw some very welcomed migrants, such as pine warbler, palm warbler, yellow-rumped warbler and Louisiana waterthrush. 

When migration is just picking up, however, the action can be hit or miss. In a few weeks, the action will be all hits all the time, and I’m sure we are all looking forward to that.

While those first migrants are great to see after a long winter, they also whet the appetite to see more spring migrants. The woods will be hit or miss for the next several days anyway, so the other day I went to a spot where I knew I would see a few old feathered friends that I hadn’t seen since last summer.

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For the Birds: How are moose doing these days anyway?

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Photo by Chris Bosak – A cow moose in Pittsburg, NH, in the early 2000s.

I was lucky enough to live through New Hampshire’s golden age of moose.

The moose population in the state peaked at somewhere around 7,000 to 8,000 in the mid- to late-1990s. At the time, I worked a four-day week and had Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off each week. Working until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays wasn’t great for my social life, but it was ideal for camping trips. As I headed to northern New Hampshire on Sunday afternoons, most people were packing up and going back home to start the workweek.

I had my choice of campsites at Deer Mountain State Park in Pittsburg, and I had my choice of ponds on which to canoe. Rarely did I see other paddlers on the ponds. But I saw plenty of moose. I won’t exaggerate and say I saw dozens on each trip, but I certainly saw four or five either on the ponds or along the roads each time I went. I can’t recall a trip where I didn’t see at least a few moose.

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For the Birds: Spring waterfowl migration never disappoints

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Photo by Chris Bosak – A male common merganser swims on a small pond in New England.

There is a pond 20 minutes from my house that I pass frequently. For 50 weeks of the year, the pond holds little interest for me other than being an aesthetically pleasing landmark to look at as I drive past.

In the summer, a few mallards and Canada geese are the only birds present. It being a small pond in New England, it is frozen for most of the winter, which is great for the skaters who have fun on the ice, but not so much for birdwatchers.

However, during one week in early spring and one week in late fall, the pond holds a surprisingly solid variety of migrating ducks. 

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For the Birds: Finally, a column on old bird names

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Photo by Chris Bosak
The eastern towhee used to be called chewink.

Many months ago, or maybe it was years at this point, I promised to do a column on old bird names. 

Quite frankly, I forgot about it and never got around to doing the column. I can’t even remember what inspired me to consider such a column, but I must have been writing about a bird with a relatively new name and thought it would be a good idea to look at other somewhat recent bird name changes. Perhaps I wrote about a long-tailed duck and recalled the old name of oldsquaw. Regardless of the impetus, here’s that column I promised so long ago.

Now, I did write a column last summer about the most recent name changes by the American Ornithological Society. In that column, I relayed that the powers that be changed the name of the house wren we see in New England to northern house wren. A year earlier, I wrote that the three redpoll species were lumped into a single species called redpoll. 

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