The cool weather has birds on the wing, including Swainson’s thrushes

I stepped out of my house last Tuesday morning about 6:40 and was amazed at the sounds drifting down from the pre-dawn sky.

If you are familiar with spring peepers, those tiny frogs that give high pitched peeps in the late winter and early spring, then you have an idea of what I heard. But it wasn’t frogs I was hearing.

It was the sound of dozens, if not hundreds, of migrating Swainson’s thrushes as they descended after a night of travel. Interspersed with the Swainson’s thrushes were the calls of gray-cheeked thrushes and even a few hermit thrushes. Aside from the thrushes there were also nocturnal flight calls of palm warblers, common yellowthroats, killdeer, green heron, and other unidentified warblers and landbirds.

A clear night with northerly winds brought a horde of migrants into the area, and the dawn calls were the most I have heard in any one fall morning in a very, very long time. Clear evidence that migration is at a peak. Birders know what conditions result in a heavy night movement of birds and have learned to identify what is passing overhead by learning the nocturnal calls.

With so many birds moving right now it is inevitable that some odd species will end up in some very odd places when they set down for the day. Unsettled weather will knock everything out of the sky and the birds often are not in control of where they come down.

The photo accompanying my column this week is of a sora, a chicken-like marsh bird, which ended up perched over the entrance to an elementary school in York, S.C. after recent heavy rains. I have received photos of an American woodcock, a plump, long-billed shorebird, foraging in a local back yard also.

The October northerly winds are bringing the first winter residents into the southern Piedmont too. Ruby-crowned kinglets and yellow-bellied sapsuckers have already been reported. As October wears on expect more familiar winter species to appear, including dark-eyed juncos, white-thoated sparrows, and yellow-rumped warblers.

If you are an early riser take a few minutes around dawn after a clear cool night to stop and listen for the tiny travelers passing overhead. Even if you cannot identify the species you will get an idea of the numbers of birds pouring into our area right now.

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 4:39 PM with the headline "The cool weather has birds on the wing, including Swainson’s thrushes."