A walk yesterday afternoon to Royal River Park here in Yarmouth produced a couple of interesting observations. First, I noticed that small flocks of American Robins were moving south overhead. In fact, throughout the afternoon, I noticed the same phenomenon, and it continues today as well. Every now and then a few Common Grackles were heading in the same direction.

Sometimes this is referred to as “reverse” migration. However, I’m not sure if that term technically applies in this case. American Robins, Common Grackles and other blackbirds, along with species like Tree Swallows, are all “facultative migrants.” Essentially, they can come and go as the conditions allow. An “obligate migrant” is a species that picks up and leaves one place at a fairly specific time, and goes to another place, arriving at a fairly specific time. Most of our warblers, for example, are obligate migrants – when they gotta go, they gotta go (whichever direction they’re heading)!

Facultative migrants are more flexible. They can test the waters – which is exactly what many species of ducks do. In the case of robins and most of our blackbirds, when the ground gets covered with snow – as it most certainly did this week – they’ll retreat. Likely, they’ll head no further south than they have to – to open, snow-free ground, or in the case of robins, perhaps no further than a big cluster of crabapples.

No worries though, they’ll be back as soon as the patches of dirt begin to reappear, and with the strong April sun, that really shouldn’t be too long. For example, the strip of garden in front of our store, sandwiched between a southerly-facing building and a warm black-topped parking lot, is already nearly snow free and the crocuses are poking through already.

I was a touch more worried about the eight Eastern Phoebes that I encountered along the Royal River yesterday. I was watching them sallying down from riparian trees to pick some sort of treats off the surface of the river. Phoebes need bugs, so even if they retreat a hundred miles or so to the south, they may have a tough going in the next week. But, birds are resilient critters, so we really need not worry (but, if you have some phoebes in you yard, they’ll often graciously accept helpings of live mealworms).

This morning, after enjoying the feeder bird activity a bit more – a Song Sparrow, our first since last fall arrived overnight, I headed up to the Hawkwatch. After 4 days with virtually zero hawk migration, the clear skies and light winds would hopefully get the birds going again. But, the winds were still out of the west this morning – not the more productive southwest – and the cold air was taking a while to warm up. I hung around until 11, tallying 7 raptors – but hey, that’s 7 times the count for the previous four days! (Two Osprey, 1 Turkey Vulture, 1 Red-tailed Hawk, 1 Cooper’s Hawk, 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk, and one gorgeous male Northern Harrier – the Gray Ghost, in the valley below). While we did have one Double-crested Cormorant heading north, we had a flock of 7 Killdeer – another facultative migrant – heading back south, looking for greener (or at least browner) pastures.

My guess is Lionel is picking up a few birds in the west-southwest breezes today. But, after periods of inclement weather, it seems to take a day or two for hawks to really get on the move again. Therefore, with light winds predicted for tomorrow – and southwesterly to start – we could have a very good flight. Let’s hope so; we’ve got some catching up to do!

And this you have got to see this bird to believe! Check out the first ever video of the Marvelous Spatuletail from the American Bird Conservancy.