When You Know Migration Is Truly Over

As I write, October is nearly over. We have had nearly a month without rain in New Jersey, where I live, and the shriveled leaves rain down with every puff of wind. We had lovely color for a while but then the temperature, which had dropped, started rising again. Now, Halloween might be 80 degrees F, a new record.

The "Sparrow Bowl," Sept. 29, 2024
(Margo D. Beller)

Every day I check the lists to see what other birders have found and also the interactive "Bird Migration Forecast" map that uses the information picked up by the nation's radar system to track bird movement. Lately, movement has been light.

So in my head I know this year's southbound migration is just about over. But it was still a jolt to visit an area I only recently discovered to be a good place for a variety of sparrows, warblers and other birds needing a place to rest and where they can feed on the weed seeds and the fruits on assorted vines. 

This weedy area is in the Central Park of Morris County, which I still refer to as Greystone for the former mental hospital that moved up the road. The site is 5 minutes from my house, making it very convenient to visit daily. It is a very large piece of property and one can find birds, deer, even foxes if you hike early in the morning before the dog walkers and runners show up.

This particular area I'm mentioning consists of two drainage ditches located behind the playgrounds. These ditches became overgrown with weeds, as open areas like this will do. One of the ditches also has small trees in it, and that made a difference to what I now relate.

The same area, Oct. 30, 2024. (Margo D. Beller)

I came to the area today for the first time in a week. As I walked over from where I parked I saw half of what I called the "sparrow bowl," was gone - completely mowed down. The other half, where the trees are growing, was left basically alone except for the mowing down of ragweed at the edge. With my binoculars I looked up the path at nearby areas where I discovered more birds would hide in the ragweed. All gone.

Logically, I can understand why this county park would want to mow down ragweed. I don't like it in my yard either. This area of the park gets a lot of foot traffic between the dog walkers and the cross-country runners, with a birder like me showing up here and there.

Emotionally, I was ready to throw up.

There are still plenty of weeds near where I was standing in the park and in the fields beyond, but the only birds I heard or saw today were the ones I'd expect to hang around during the winter including juncos, various woodpeckers, jays.

[UPDATE: Between the time of this post and today, Nov. 3, the weeds in the second drainage area were cut down. The trees were left standing. I found late migrants in a field down the hill where they can hide among the dried goldenrod.]

The other part of the "bowl" (to the right) where only the weed
border was mowed down thanks to the trees.
(Margo D. Beller)

I was reminded of when I worked in Jersey City, on the waterfront. There were plenty of open, empty lots filled with weeds. During migration I'd find plenty of birds, including the types others reported from more typical migrant hotspots such as Central Park in New York City. But soon "development" did away with those open lots, and with them the birds.

Many weedy areas in parks and vacant lots are important stopovers for birds on the move, but most people don't look at weeds that way. What was a nearby bird paradise for me (and the birds) was just so much wasted land to the Jersey City "developers" and, I realize, those who want Greystone used by everyone, birders and nonbirders alike. So once again something has changed, and not for the better.

In this particular area, at least, migration is over. I'll have to look elsewhere farther afield and hope to find this paradise restored next year.

What We Found After a Week Away

Time isn't the main thing, it's the only thing.
   -- Miles Davis

In the greater scheme of things, a week is a very small period of time. It comes and goes before you know it. But after a recent week away we returned to find major changes had taken place in the small bit of ecology I call my backyard and in the behavior of the birds that live in it.

Before we went away the first full week of May to chase the northbound migrants closer to their breeding grounds, I could go out early in the morning and hear or see a host of birds feeding on the strands of seeds hanging from the oak trees. The locust trees appeared bare. The forsythia, lilacs and quince were flowering. The grass was just starting to green and grow.

Blackpoll photo by jerryoldenettel is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

Where we traveled it was unusually cool and rainy most of the time. The one day of full sun and spring-like warmth, the weathercasters warned, "Don't get used to it." They were right - the cold returned. But while we were away our part of NJ got a lot of rain and a lot of heat.

So when we returned last Sunday we found our lawn had turned into a long, bushy meadow, complete with matted-down areas where the deer had rested unmolested. The forsythia, quince and lilac flowers were done. The apple tree lost its blossoms and was in full leaf. Same with the dogwood. I found the irises, azaleas and rhododendron flowering and the cannas had sprouted. And the weeds were, as usual, everywhere.

The front-yard locust tree leaves came out and the backyard oak and maple trees are now casting lush green shade. Several of the bushes, including the viburnum I planted three years ago, jumped in size. The wrongly named "dead area" was filled with overgrown wild onion, wild rose, garlic mustard, ragweed and plants I can't name. In another corner of the yard, the space was filled with wild strawberries.

All this happened in a week.

As for the birds, the white-throated sparrows left when the feeders were taken in. Others came back once I put the feeders back out but they have other concerns now. I hear young begging for food when a parent returns to the hidden nest. One nest must be cardinals, based on the activity of the adult pair. While the young will only be fed protein-rich insects, the parents are coming to the feeder for the quick energy they can get from the sunflower seeds.

Robin's nest, found on the stairs
leading to the observation platform,
Montezuma (NY) NWR (Margo D. Beller)

The male house wren that could be heard daily before dawn before we left is silent. When I go outside to look at the nest box a wren will scold me from a hedge nearby and then, when I back off, fly into the box but it does not immediately come out. This means the wren is an adult who must sit on a nest full of eggs. Is this bird a female or male? Wrens of both sexes look the same. A single parent will have to work that much harder to get food for the brood (and itself) plus protect the nest.

As for the migrants, in the last couple of days I have been hearing the squeaky-brake call of the blackpoll warbler, a call I associate with the end of migration. This little bird, which has a superficial resemblance to the black-capped chickadee, has a very long migratory route and is one of the last to pass through my area on its way north. So migration is basically over, as far as my yard is concerned.

This past week it was time to catch up on bills, groceries and the yards. MH and I mowed the long, seeding grass and I spent several cool, wet early mornings pulling weeds (far from all of them) and untangling some of the plants growing into the deer netting before they could open flowers that would get stuck. I potted the vegetable and herb seedlings bought before we left and put them behind fencing in a sunny part of the yard. You'd hardly know we'd been away, presuming anyone had noticed.

For the moment we can relax and enjoy our bit of property before summer's heat and humidity comes back with a vengeance and the yard will need attending to again.

In the Weeds

"In the weeds" definition: "A colloquial expression used when persons are near or beyond their capacity to handle a situation or cannot catch up."

It is one of those rare summer mornings when you get a break from the heat and humidity. It is Sunday so the neighborhood takes its time waking. As I sit outside on my patio enjoying the cool, dry breeze I hear only the whirring of insects and the occasional bird call. It is so cool, even the cicadas haven't started calling yet.

Apple tree losing its leaves, Aug. 26, 2018
(Margo D. Beller)

The apple and pear trees have been losing leaves for weeks, although the other trees are still leafy and green. A catbird quietly flies to the apple, perhaps curious about my sneezing. There have been no hummingbirds yet but the squirrels have been active. The rain-like sound I hear are pieces of acorns being dropped as the critters use their sharp teeth and strong jaws to crack into the nut. The squirrels are jumping rather acrobatically from tree to tree, searching. At some point they'll stop eating and start storing, and that is when I will find holes in my lawn.

But for now it is a solid carpet of green MH mowed the other day for the first time in two weeks. I am thankful he did it because he lopped off the weeds as well as the long grass. There have always been weeds in the grass, and over the years I've learned the names of some of them:  ground ivy, wood sorrel, crabgrass, locust seedlings pushing up from the long tree roots I know are spreading under the turf. But this year I have been finding other things I've learned to identify to pull them up before they spread: poison ivy, Virginia creeper, Rose of Sharon, many raspberry seedlings and even a few poplar trees, the latter particularly strange because there are no poplars in my immediate area.

As MH mowed, I completed my third straight day of weeding, taking advantage of the relative coolness and the decrease in humidity.

Ground ivy and other weeds (Margo D. Beller)

I don't know why I am compelled to bother. The weeds are everywhere, this year even more so because of all the rain. The trenches I dug last year kept down, but not out, the ground ivy but the Bermuda grass was everywhere. Bermuda grass, unfortunately, is a perennial and it is one of those weeds that you have to use a spade on if you have any hope of getting out the whole plant. Just yanking on the leaves won't help you get rid of the plant although removing the long foliage will allow you to see the other plants you want to keep.

You might ask, why not use weed killer? Because using such poison indiscriminately will kill your garden along with the weeds. And there are some good weeds. The clover and the marigolds draw bees. Sometimes I find a flower growing in a weed pile and dig it up and plant it elsewhere. Recently I pulled up a raspberry cane and put it near the compost pile to see if it will grow and give me berries, if I can get out ahead of the birds. (Canes are thorny, like roses, so deer shouldn't be a problem.) 

Flowering ornamental onions (Margo D. Beller)

I don't mind the weeds in the lawn. They keep it green in hot weather and the purple flowers of the ground ivy are quite pretty in the spring. MH will put down fertilizer for the grass, which is why we still have most of it in the lawn despite the weeds, but putting down poison that can run off in heavy rain down the driveway and into the storm drain just hurts the environment. I see neighbors getting their lawns treated - the company has to put in a flag to warn people to keep their kids and dogs off the grass - and yet there are still weeds. 

So I'm out there pulling.

Some weeds let you pull them out completely. On the first of the days I spent weeding, I was pulling out a type of grassy weed that comes back every year. I pull and it comes out easily, in large handfuls. I filled a pail going along the area between our yard and the next house, an area falsely called "the dead area." This dead area has all sorts of weeds, but removing this thin, grassy stuff allows me to see the wild strawberries and any fruits I can pick. These are not the large, cultivated, sweet berries in the grocery stores. These are small and dryer and not very sweet but quite edible.

This year's weeds atop the compost pile. (Margo D. Beller)

The next day, even dryer than the first, I pulled out weeds from the area where I have three ornamental grasses, many daffodils and ornamental onions including two plants that flower in the fall. I remove the weeds as best as I can so I can see the other plants and remove some of the competition for moisture. I also get an idea how much room I have in case I follow through with a plan to divide the astilbe that has not flowered for two years.

The last day, as MH mowed, my plan was to put the coneflower I'd bought into the ground. I did so, dislodging eight daffodil bulbs I then had to plant in front of it. Then I started pulling weeds from the plot and saw the encroachment of the Bermuda grass under the rhododendron. Then I saw it all over the plot at the side of the house, under the andromeda bushes and around the ferns. I had a bigger pail with me and it, too, got filled to the top as I worked my way along other parts of the back yard.

At the end of those three days my compost pile had a hefty pile of green on top. When more of the leaves fall and we start raking, a layer of brown will go on top of those weeds. But for now, with the return of summer heat and humidity forecast, I can take a break from these garden labors and wait for the next spate of cool weather to cut down what's done for the year and prepare the garden for winter.

But the weeds will keep growing and next year, as usual, I won't be able to keep up.

Update: Today, Aug. 29, the New York Times has announced, in its food section, that weeds are the new big deal in food and flower arrangements. Really? How nice of the Times to inform me of something I've known for years. I still find weeds a pain, however.