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Epic Journeys

The Evening Grosbeak is one of many irruptive (or irregular) winter migratory bird species you might see this fall. Submitted photo

The arctic north breathes out its birds in one, long slow exhale through the fall. The cold winds blow in new birds with each windy day. These birds are on an epic yearly adventure, leaving the barren tundras and pine forests of the north to venture far into new lands. Some of these birds have, quite frankly, seen more of the world than I have.

This year, the birds are erupting. My son likes to think they are being flung from the north by flaming volcanoes, their feathers ablaze, but this is a different spelling and different type of irruption. The birds are flinging themselves from the far north, their feathers not on fire, as they abandon their traditional homes for a southern vacation. For these birds, it is not a yearly thing, but something that happens every two to 12 years.

The causes for this are not quite understood. It is fairly hard to study continent-wide things that happen in order to understand why a particular bird that ends up in your yard left the far north. It could move because of a lack of food to the north, a good breeding year where there are more birds than food, horrible weather or other things we don’t understand.

The end result is that, in addition to many other odd birds passing through, there are birds moving through the area that I have not seen since I was a twelve-year-old boy who was lackadaisically interested in birds at the feeder. The most spectacular of these, for me, is the Evening Grosbeak.

This bird, already seen in Erie, Pa., and sporadically in our local area (but not by me), looks like a goldfinch that mated with a cardinal. They are hefty, chunky birds that are about a cardinal’s size, with yellow bodies and black and white wings. I remember them hitting the birdfeeder and devouring seed for several days before moving on, the Mongolian horde of the bird world.

To attract them, put out plenty of black oil sunflower seed. They prefer to eat off of a platform feeder. Other birds, such as adorable little Pine Siskins and Redpolls, prefer thistle seed from tube feeders.

Snowy Owls are also starting to appear nearby. They have been seen in Rochester and Buffalo, and it is completely possible that they will start appearing in large fields in our area soon as well.

Some of you, if you have read this far, might be wondering why I am blathering on and on about birds. The truth is, I find it fascinating to think of an unpredictable arctic visitor coming to my yard for a few days. Birds connect my yard to the rest of the planet in unexpected ways. A bird from Canada may stop in my yard, eat up, then be in South America the following month.

Chautauqua Lake is equally important. The lake is considered and Important Bird Area for the sheer number of birds that use the lake as a spot to eat and rest as they migrate. Look for flocks of loons, swans, coots and other birds in huge numbers. They too, fly distances that we only roughly understand.

Birds are the nature ambassadors of the world. What we do to them here, they carry with them to other parts of the planet. What happens to them in distant lands can affect them by our homes.

Look for these feathery ambassadors from the north stopping off in a yard near you.

Jeff Tome is a Senior Naturalist and Exhibits Coordinator at the Audubon Community Nature Center, a former CWC board director and a longtime CWC volunteer. The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy is a local not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing the water quality, scenic beauty and ecological health of the lakes, streams, wetlands and watersheds of the Chautauqua region. For more information, call 716-664-2166 or visit www.chautauquawatershed.org or www.facebook.com/chautauquawatershed.

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