Most Asked Questions--Late Summer
Anne Hobbs, the Lab's public information specialist, shares her answers to some of the most frequently asked questions we receive during the late summer months.
1. There’s a bird in my yard I’ve never seen before. How can I find out what it is?
When I see a bird I don’t know, I want to learn what it is. There are a variety of factors I consider. Let me share some of these with you.
First, I think about where I saw the bird. I mean what town or state. Then I remember where the bird was when I saw it. Was it on the ground? In a tree? At my feeder? These locations will provide information that can sometimes be as helpful as a physical description.
Second, I focus on the actual physical description of the bird. This includes the color of the bird, but it doesn’t stop there. Looking at the bill of the bird can often be really helpful. Is the bill long or short? Thick or thin? Curved in any way? The size and shape of a bird’s bill helps to define the kinds of food it eats.
It is always helpful to have some idea of the size of a bird but here, I’ve got to issue a caution. Unless you’ve got a lot of experience sizing birds or other things in the field, you’re not likely to be very accurate in your estimate of size. That’s why a size comparison is really helpful. Most people know what a sparrow, a robin and a crow look like and have a sense of how big they are. I ask myself if the bird is larger than a sparrow but smaller than a robin. This works best if a bird of a known size is nearby. Other nearby objects such as a cola can or bird bird feeder can provide a good size reference.
The fourth component that can be very useful is to think about what the bird was doing when I saw it. What it flying or scratching on the ground? Was it alone or feeding with other birds? What other birds were around when I saw it?
It’s so satisfying to learn what a mystery bird’s name is. Follow the steps above and I’ll bet you’ll have fewer unsolved mysteries. There’s lots more information at Birding 1 2 3.
2. Yesterday evening about dusk I watched hundreds and hundreds of birds flying over my house. What were they?
Now that the breeding season is over, birds tend to be more social. They gather in large numbers in the evening and roost together. It could be that the hundreds of birds you’re seeing are on their way to such a roost.
It is also the time of year when birds are either preparing to migrate to their winter feeding grounds or are actually doing so. Many songbirds migrate at night and so we are often not even aware of their passing. Some birds are solitary migrants but others gather in huge flocks. While I couldn’t tell you exactly which birds were in the flocks you saw, they could have been a mix of blackbirds, grackles and cowbirds. Depending on your location, these "blackbirds" may be migrating or just headed to their favorite roost for the evening.
3. There’s a bird in my yard that I think has a disease of some kind. It doesn’t have any feathers on its head.
In fall, we receive many inquiries about bald birds, especially Northern Cardinals and Blue Jays. In late summer and fall, when a bird molts, it usually grows and replaces all its feathers gradually, but occasionally a bird loses all the feathers on its head at once. The result is a very strange looking bald bird! Don’t worry--usually the feathers grow back just fine.
It is possible that the baldness is caused by environmental or nutritional factors, feather mites, or lice. To read more and take a look at photos of other bald birds, visit the "Bald Birds" page on the Project FeederWatch web site.
4. Is it normal to see a Rufous Hummingbird in central Arizona during the summer?
The short answer to your question is yes. Rufous Hummingbirds leave their breeding grounds in the northwest of the United States and Canada around mid-July and head south. You can see this for yourself by exploring the data for Arizona in eBird, a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon. You’ll notice that in Arizona numbers begin to climb in late July and peak during the months of August and September.
I hope you’ll be willing to enter your sightings at eBird. By doing so, you not only share your information with researchers here at Cornell, but also with the global community of educators, land managers, ornithologists, conservation biologists, and other birders.
5. I have had a hawk family--father, mother, and two young ones--move into the wooded area behind our house. Needless to say, they have disrupted our summer feeders. Do you have any suggestions, other than removing our feeders for a while, on how to get these hawks to move out of our neighborhood?
That's a little like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. I'm afraid that, as long as you keep your feeders up, the hawks will stay. Why would they want to leave when you're doing such a good job of providing food for them? I hate to deprive you of the pleasure of watching birds but if you'd like to avoid the sight of hawks taking out your Mourning Doves, you'll be wise to remove your feeders for a week or two. The hawks have to eat so they'll move on and find someone else with feeders.
You can learn more about feeder problems and solutions at our Project FeederWatch web site.
By the way, the hawks are probably one of two accipiter species that feed on other birds. You can learn more about these two interesting raptors in the Bird Guide.
