Spring Beauties
It would not be difficult to convince me that there is something beautiful about every bird, but in my opinion, a handful of species that arrive in or pass through California's Great Central Valley during spring migration are particularly gorgeous.
May is the magical month in the calendar of every North American birder, when spring migration reaches its peak and brilliantly colored migratory birds return from a winter spent in the neotropics of Central and South America.
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| Male Lazuli Bunting |
These "neotropical migrants," as they are known to birders and ornithologists, span a wide range of songbird families, but some of the most colorful (and thereby most beloved by birders) are members of the cardinal family, Cardinalidae, which includes New World buntings, grosbeaks and tanagers.
Male Lazuli Buntings are a brilliant, almost turquoise blue, with rusty-red chests and prominent white wingbars. Females are more drab in color, but still easily recognizable by their thick bunting bills. Lazuli Buntings breed in brushy thickets, usually near water, across the Western U.S.
In the central and eastern U.S., keep an eye out for returning Indigo Buntings; in the south-central U.S., prepare to be dazzled by Painted Buntings; and along the southern borders of Arizona and Texas, look for Varied Buntings!
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| Male Lazuli Bunting |
Another of my favorite migrants to arrive in April and May is the Blue Grosbeak, which is far more common in the central and southeastern U.S. than it is in California. (Therefore, seeing one here is always a special treat!) Blue Grosbeaks favor shrubby habitats, from tangled vines, hedges and overgrown farmland to powerline cuts. As with many species, they seem to prefer edge habitat.
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| Male Blue Grosbeak |
The Black-headed Grosbeak is another species that favors edge habitat offering a combination of tall trees and dense understory. While they can be found in the Valley's riparian woodlands throughout the spring and summer, I find them to be much more abundant in the mid-elevation mixed coniferous forests of the Sierra Nevada, where their operatic songs and tennis-shoe-on-a-gym-floor squeaks cascade down from the treetops.
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| Male Black-headed Grosbeak |
Western Tanagers only pass through the Central Valley on their way to their breeding grounds in open coniferous forests across the mountainous western United States and Canada, and I have found the first week or two of May to be the most likely time to see them in my town. During the summer, they are one of the more common species in the mid-elevation forests of the Sierra, though they are more likely to be heard than seen!
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| Male Western Tanager |
Orioles (which are members of the blackbird family) and wood warblers are also brightly-colored and highly sought-after gems during spring migration.
Bullock's Orioles arrive slightly earlier than other neotropical migrants, and stake out breeding territories along riparian corridors across the western U.S. In the eastern U.S., watch for the return of similar Baltimore Orioles.
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| Male Bullock's Oriole |
The western United States is home to significantly fewer species of warblers than back East, but we do still have around ten species during the spring and summer, and a few that stick around all winter!
The "sweet-sweet-sweet-I'm-so-sweet" song of a Yellow Warbler or the simple, sweet chatter of a Wilson's Warbler, inevitably emanating from some thick patch of newly leafed-out foliage, is a sure sign that spring migration is underway! While these two species are usually guaranteed to be seen every year, Nashville, Hermit and MacGillivray's Warblers are far less common, coming through in April and May in considerably smaller numbers.
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| Yellow Warbler |
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