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| Female Summer Tanager |
I wondered through the
early part of the Spring 2017 migration if the sources I consulted for
information stopped reporting or posting. When our birding family members came
for their traditional Easter and birding vacation with us, I doubled my efforts
to find reports of migrants. The only information I found indicated that the
migration, for the most part, passed us by. We experienced a beautiful winter
this year, at least for the snowbirds and tourists. No rain, which put those of
us who live here in a drought but made their vacations perfect, and sunny skies
every day with pleasantly warm temperatures and just enough humidity. I suspect
that also made perfect flying weather for the migrants, so they just kept
going.
Last week a cold
front, really a cool front as temperatures never fell much, came through with a
lot of wind. Suddenly the reports came alive, we had a mini fallout. For those
of you who don’t bird, and never saw the 2011 movie “The Big Year” with Steve
Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, a fallout occurs when migrating birds
encounter a weather front and must land and stop migrating until the front
passes. Our visiting family returned home several days before, so Karl and I
grabbed our binoculars and cameras and hit a few of the reported sites. We did
see some migrants, and in one also encountered the native and very annoying
no-see-ums in record numbers. Sightings happened, photography didn’t.
The beautiful weather
returned, and most of the birds continued on their way. We still heard occasional
reports, but it became clear that the migrant birding this year concentrated
itself in a two or three day window. The only decent photo I managed to take
this year happened at Brooker Creek Preserve on our monthly photography hike
this past Saturday. We set out in what would end up the hottest day ever
recorded in April, smashing previous records, with humidity to match. One of
the hikers saw a flash of yellow, but try as we might we never saw the bird
again. We stopped at one of our regular talking point stops, and a reddish
flash went across the trail. Too far for all the zoom lenses of our hikers, and
barely within range of my 400mm, sat a female Summer Tanager. She posed for a
bit, and took off.
I usually get at least
one really good photograph to add to my bird portfolio during Spring migration.
This year I missed, so here’s hoping for a really good Fall migration.
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