Don’t Miss Out on Fall Grosbeaks!
Over the past week, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks have been reported visiting feeders in numbers. Having concluded their nesting season in their northern breeding grounds, they are now migrating south to their southern wintering grounds in Central and South America.
While each year we consistently see Rose-breasted Grosbeaks at our feeders in the spring, (usually from mid April to mid May) they are less commonly reported at feeders in the fall. This is likely due to the abundance of food available in the wild during the autumn months. However, certain years (such as this one!) we are fortunate enough to get to enjoy them at our feeders again.
These Rose-breasted Grosbeaks were enjoying safflower seed out of a Bird’s Choice platform feeder.
Photo by Eli Haislip
If you are reading this and wondering what you can do to attract them to your feeders, you’re in luck. These birds are easy to please! Sunflower, safflower, or our Woodland and Premium blends are all fine choices that will satisfy any Rose-breasted Grosbeaks as they pass through, not to mention your day to day backyard neighbors.
When Should You Take Down Your Hummingbird Feeder?
For many folks, including ourselves, this was a fantastic season for Ruby-throated hummingbirds. Just to make you jealous, here is a quick video of peak feeding activity at John’s house. After a down year for numbers last year, he is back to being king of hummingbird feeding here at the shop.
Now is the time of year that people ask us when they should take their feeders down. While we can confidently tell you the peak of feeder activity is well behind us, there are still Ruby-throated hummingbirds passing through. As long as you keep your nectar fresh and your feeder clean, keeping one partially filled feeder up into late October won’t hurt anything. In fact, this gives you a chance (although a very slim one) to be one of the few lucky individuals to attract a western species of hummingbird, such as a Rufous Hummingbird.
While we are on the subject of keeping your feeders up, let’s address the common misconception that by keeping feeders up, you are actually preventing hummingbirds from migrating. This is completely false. Hummingbirds have quite literally thousands of years of instinct telling them when to migrate. They have been making this journey since long before European explorers even knew of the existence of the New World, let alone people began mixing one part plain white table sugar to four parts water to replicate flower nectar and putting it in a brightly colored feeder! All this to say, they know what they are doing and keeping a feeder up into October is not going to prevent them from leaving when they need to.
Fun with Technology
Fall Migration is in full swing, with an estimated 2,063,100 birds flying over Davidson County last night alone. I can almost hear some of you wondering how I can possibly know that. The answer is a fun tool called BirdCast!
We have talked about BirdCast in the past, but here is a refresher. It uses local radar that has become sensitive enough that it can actually pick up and track birds as they migrate through our night skies. From 6:20PM October 8th, to 6:50AM October 9th, BirdCast tracked 2,063,100 birds across Davidson County. The peak of activity occurred at 7:40pm with an estimated 420,900 birds in flight at an altitude of 1,900 feet, traveling at about 19mph. I will include a link to the website here, as it will likely be quite interesting to see how the weather moving in potentially affects the nightly migration numbers over the next few days!