Arrival of certain spring birds coincides with Kenduskeag canoe race

I can’t help wondering how this year’s non-winter will affect the arrival of migrating birds. Will an early spring mean an early migration? It’s a mystery that may already have a partial answer.

This is the weekend I expect certain birds to appear. I learned the hard way.

I think the year was 1989. My wife and I were in the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race . We survived Six Mile Falls with no problem, but shipwrecked a few minutes later. We left the canoe wrapped around a rock and walked into the woods, hitching a ride to the finish line.

As we made our soggy way up the stream bank, I noticed the woods were full of yellow-rumped warblers, accompanied by a smattering of palm warblers. In the tall pines along Kenduskeag Avenue, pine warblers were in full voice.

To this day, 35 years later, I associate the first big arrival of songbirds with broaching my canoe.

Since then, I’ve become aware of other birds that arrive around the third weekend of April. Ruby-crowned kinglets and yellow-bellied sapsuckers are usually in that same early migration wave. Swamp sparrows and chipping sparrows flood back all at once.

Naturally, weather determines the exact day of arrival. “My” birds typically return on a sunny day, following a night of southerly winds. Northbound birds prefer a tailwind they can ride during their nocturnal flights. By watching the forecast, I can usually predict the exact day they will appear.

More warblers begin to trickle in during the following week. I expect to hear the first black-and-white warbler around May 1. That same migration wave should carry the first northern parula and black-throated green warbler into my yard.

By the second weekend of May, about half of Maine’s warblers will have reached their nesting grounds.

Hummingbirds typically arrive in time for Mother’s Day. The remaining thrushes, swallows, and flycatchers will be right behind them.

That’s the usual timetable.

But what about this spring? Now that our warming weather is smashing records with each passing year, there could be a different outcome.

Winter wrens and hermit thrushes came in last weekend. Eastern phoebes arrived prematurely at my house. All of those birds I associate with my lost canoe have already popped up in Eastern Maine, one week early.

I’m not too surprised by the early arrivals. For most of 2024, it seems like we’ve had nothing but southerly breezes. Our earliest migrants wintered in southern states. All they had to do was hop on the northbound weather train. They had some assurance that if the weather was warmer than usual down there, it would be warmer than usual up here.

But birds that winter in the tropics have no clue about what our winter was like in North America. Some of our birds — bobolinks and upland sandpipers, for instance — winter in Argentina. They would not receive the same weather updates that the short-distance migrants enjoy. Presumably, they would follow their usual instincts, taking their cues from changes to the length of daylight, or dwindling seasonal food supplies. In short, they’d go when they usually go, right?

We’ll see. I’ll pay particular attention to the arrival date of neotropical migrants this year, especially since they may be facing more serious threats. They time their return to coincide with food abundance in Maine. The worry is that the timing could be altered by climate change.

I’ll also be watching the timing of insect abundance, such as early black flies. I usually expect the plague to begin around Mother’s Day. I expect to be scratching mosquito bites about a week later. God forbid that I need to start scratching sooner than that.

We may have to rename mayflies and June bugs to keep up with the times.

Likewise, I’ll be watching the flowering plants. Forsythia had already started blooming in southern Maine when I visited last week.

Hummingbirds need to know the timetable for apple blossoms, which normally bloom in May. I need to know too. I may have to put out my hummingbird feeders before Mother’s Day weekend. I may need to put out oranges for Baltimore orioles a week earlier.

Lastly, I’ve been wondering for several years if Maine’s entire canoe racing schedule needs to be advanced a week. Snow melts sooner, if there’s any snow at all.

If the arrival of yellow-rumped warblers is still going to coincide with Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race weekend, the day may be coming when the race is held on the second weekend of April.

If so, you heard it here first.