I start counting birds for Project Feeder Watch in three days. Because it’s a survey of birds that visit your feeders in winter, they time the start of the count so that most of the migrating birds will have already moved to their winter feeding grounds.
Although I sometimes see an increase in the number of Juncos that visit my yard, most of the other birds have moved on or sharply decreased in number by the time I get to do my first count.
This year might be different. I’m up to my ears in birds at the moment. The other day when I was doing my Critter Count, I noted that most of the migrants had moved on except for a handful of White-throated Sparrows. I thought the activity was finally grinding to a halt.
Then I opened the window shade yesterday morning to find Goldfinches everywhere. A cloud of them had descended on my garden and were hanging on my plants eating seeds. There were scores of them.
In the afternoon the 8 White-throated Sparrows I’d noted a day earlier had ballooned to almost 30. And I had to rub my eyes a few times to make sure I was really seeing FOUR Fox Sparrows at the same time.
I’m wondering if the severe drought in northern Wisconsin this summer is the cause of some of the unusual bird activity I’ve been seeing. Whatever the reason, I hope some of them stay around for the next three days so my first bird count can be a big one.