Let the Games Begin
By Keith Michael
People tell me about the day-to-day city games that they play: walking at a fixed pace to a destination while trying to not get stopped by a traffic light, compulsively counting steps, besting a routine door-to-door travel time, recalling all of the businesses that graced a favorite street corner location, and on and on. Spring brings other games to be played. Bird watching games.
Eastern Phoebe. The hands down winner of First of Season. All Photos by Keith Michael.
One of the most popular games for bird watchers is known as First of Season: the first bird of a species that arrives during spring migration. This is a natural extension of the ongoing game many birders play of keeping lists of the bird species that they have seen. Listing can be a benign amusement or it can be a competitive (blood) sport where bird watchers try to “out list” each other. The prize being, generally, only bragging rights! This counting obsession may take the global form of a Life List—all of the different bird species one has seen, a Year List—this is a fun one because one gets to reboot the tallying on January 1 each year, state lists, city lists, borough lists, neighborhood lists, “patch lists,” yard lists, month lists, trip lists, or any other kind of list that one fancies.
Spring migration is a refreshing jump-start as the myriad migratory birds that left in the fall to warmer climates parade back through on their long journeys northward for the summer breeding season. One of the first birds to return after the winter is the Eastern Phoebe. Seeing one of these tail-bobbing, peripatetic flycatchers feels like a promise that spring is on the way even when the fickleness of the weather is far from reassuring. This year, my First of Season Phoebe showed up on March 24 out at Fort Tilden, Queens among the beach grass, and my first for the West Village, appeared later that same day. Its squarish head, yellow wash on its breast, sprinkling of “whiskers” around its bill, and that metronomic pumping of its tail, all broadcast spring cheerfulness.
Usually, not too far behind is the first Palm Warbler, a yellow bird with a russet cap. This is another tail-bobber, but you’ll more often see this one lollygagging about lawns or edges rather than sallying from tree branches. There’s often a wave of Kinglets, both Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets, that suddenly appears. These are one of our smallest birds and are the definition of hyperactive. The Golden-crowned has a snappy, yellow-edged-in-red-and-black racing stripe on the top of its head. You will be lucky to see the Ruby-crowned’s ruby crown which they deploy only when they’re super-fraught. Blink and you’ll miss it.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.
I look forward to seeing the first Yellow-rumped Warblers flitting en masse through the Zelkova trees along the river in Hudson River Park, catching the first fiery chases of the Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers guarding their freshly drilled sap wells in the elms, and hearing the first tzee-zee-zee-tzeer-UP of a rainbow-hued Northern Parula from the honey locust treetops over Perry Street. Then, one day, it seems like everywhere you look there’s a Hermit Thrush. At first glance, these stylish birds have the silhouette and behavior of our resident American Robins, but catch them in good light and they’re a warm café au lait brown with a cinnamon tail, and a sprinkling of chocolate drops on their chests. Maybe I need breakfast. How do they work it out to all arrive on the same day? I fantasize about their maddeningly endless group text threads to synchronize their travel plans. As hard as it is to set up a lunch date with a friend, how do dozens/hundreds of them plan a Meet Up, “That park we went to last year? A month from Tuesday’s good?”
While these tourists are passing through, there are still a few winter birds who haven’t solidified their departure dates. A small group of black and white Buffleheads still plies the river pile fields and a raft of chattering Brant Geese keeps growing in size until they’ll finally agree on when to head north. Each “Oh, sweet Canada Canada Canada” from a White-throated Sparrow that I hear from under a shrub might be the last until they return in the fall.
Meanwhile, on a street lamp, a cocky resident Northern Mockingbird has taken up his post, flashing his tail and shouting out his entire repertoire of songster hits. I’m keeping track of his playlist as he’s sampling the arriving birds, the birds about to head on their way, as well as the locals, with the understood warning to them, “This block’s taken, so don’t even think about making your nest here!”
Start counting. This is just the beginning of spring migration season!
