Blog / Migration
How to prepare for fall migration
As fall draws nearer, migratory birds will set out on their journey to find locations with better resources through the winter. With the right preparations and resources, fall migration can be an exciting time to watch and learn about new birds passing through your backyard!
Get your bird feeders ready
While the birds travel to their winter destinations, they’ll be making stops along the way to refuel and rest. Since your feeders may be hosting more visits from travelers who are new to your backyard, it’s important to keep your bird feeders clean to avoid spreading diseases among birds. During fall migration, increase the frequency of your feeder cleanings to keep your backyard flocks healthy.
To appeal to the widest variety of birds, try filling your seed feeders with black oil sunflower seeds. This high-energy seed provides lots of nutrition and calories and is ideal for migratory birds making long journeys. High capacity bird feeders like tube, hopper and platform are great options for feeding black oil sunflower seed.
If you live in an area with migrating hummingbirds, continue to keep your hummingbird feeders stocked with homemade nectar for about two weeks after your see your last hummingbirds. This will ensure that you’re able to feed any latecomers on their way south.
Provide water
In addition to their daily search for food, migrating birds will also be on the lookout for fresh water. Provide a source of clean and fresh water from a bird bath, fountain or a shallow pond. It’s important to keep your water source clean and change the water often to prevent bacteria from forming and spreading amongst the birds. If your water source is stagnant, you can add a fountain to keep the water moving and prevent it from becoming dirty quickly.
Migration alerts
To help you make the most of this exciting time of year, follow the local bird migration alerts from BirdCast to find out whether birds will be passing overhead near your city tonight! BirdCast provides live and local bird migration alerts throughout the continental US by employing real-time analysis of bird migration traffic as detected by radar. You can also take a look at their bird migration forecast maps and live bird migration maps to see predicted and real-time intensities of actual nocturnal bird migration based on weather surveillance and historical bird movements.
Identify your new feathered friends
Since you’ll be seeing some new faces around your feeders, get ready to identify them with these recommended resources:
- Merlin Bird ID app: Answer three simple questions about a bird you are trying to identify and Merlin will give you a list of possible matches. Merlin offers quick identification help for all levels of bird watchers to help you learn about the birds across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
- National Geographic Field Guide: This fully revised edition of the best-selling North American bird field guide is the most up-to-date guide on the market. Perfect for beginning to advanced birders, it is the only book organized to match the latest American Ornithological Society taxonomy.
- State-specific field guides: Author, naturalist and wildlife photographer Stan Tekiela is the originator of the popular state-specific field guide series and many easy-to-use identification guides for the U.S.
Light Pollution: How to Help Migrating Birds
Did you know that many songbirds migrate thousands of miles each year? These birds often make the journey during the cover of night. Doing so has several benefits. A large number of bird predators are most active during the day, therefore flying longer distances away from cover at this time makes smaller birds less vulnerable to predation. Skies are often less turbulent during the nighttime, which makes for easier flight with less resistance and energy required for staying on course. Air temperatures are also typically cooler after the sun sets, which can also help endurance - think about running a marathon on a sweltering hot day versus a cool overcast day! Lastly, it's much easier to find food during the day. Birds that migrate during the night hours will then spend daylight hours packing in the calories to regain energy.
Even migrating at night, these long treks are still fraught with danger, and a number of birds do not make it. Unfortunately, humans have also added another threat to migratory birds: light pollution. Light pollution is the brightening of the night sky due to artificial causes such as building and street lights.
Why is light pollution bad for birds?:
- Light can disrupt a bird's circadian rhythm (the day/night cycle) and they become confused about song production, call behavior, and movement patterns.
- Artificial Light at Night, also known as ALAN, disorients the birds during migration.
- Bright lights at night attract birds which lead to fatal collisions with buildings.
- Some species that are attracted or disoriented by ALAN make 'light-induced landings' where collisions with the ground can prove fatal or, at a minimum, stun them enough to make them vulnerable to predators.
How can we reduce light pollution?:
- Visit the FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program) website for tips and check out their Bird Safe suggestions for buildings.
- Does your city or state have a Lights Out Pledge? If not, can you start one? Check out examples from Portland and Ohio.
- Donate to the Audubon Society as they are committed to education and promoting dark skies. See their Lights Out page HERE.
- Talk, tweet, and post to help educate your friends, neighbors and family about this issue.
- Reduce or improve your outdoor lighting:
- Set an example by turning your outdoor lights off.
- Ensure your outdoor light fixtures are shielded so light shines and points down, not up (also known as downlighting).
- The International Dark Sky Association puts their seal on light-fixtures that meet their strict guidelines. Look for this symbol when making new lighting purchases:
Keep your feeders filled and clean!:
Remember that an important part of a migrating bird's activity during the day is packing in those calories? What better way to help, and to get a glimpse of these visitors, than by keeping your feeders filled? We recommend feeding black oil sunflower seed and suet since these are more readily-eaten feeds for a large number of birds, provide a high level of quick nutrients and energy, and are fairly easy to feed in a wide variety of feeder types. A large capacity feeder such as our 6 QT Hopper Feeder with Suet Cages is a great option for feeding both seed and suet and ensuring the feeder stays full without having to make frequent trips outside to refill. Our Hanging Platform Feeder is another great feeder option for this time of year. Its open design ensures migratory birds of all sizes have adequate space to feed, while also giving you the best visibility to enjoy these "out-of-towners".
Unfortunately, a larger number of birds at your feeders can result in them getting dirty faster and, with a large number of migratory birds passing through, can expose your everyday backyard flock to parasites and disease. Make sure that whichever feeder you choose to put out can be easily cleaned, and we encourage at least a quick scrub if not a more thorough cleaning between each filling during both Spring and Fall migration.
Keep up to date on bird activity:
Lastly, tune in to BirdCast for their live migration maps and forecast maps produced in part by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology. These maps can be a great tool in identifying key dates where it will be especially important to keep the lights off in your area.
As always, happy birding!