With only a powerful instinct to go and a built-in compass, they leave their nest trees and hurtle themselves into black unknown skies. Often the first clue that the flow is on is the presence one morning of singing, territorial birds where yesterday only silence was present. During spring migration birds have no time for wandering or milling around. Each species has a programmed date and time to depart its winter home. Travel to its summer home is direct and, weather permitting, as quick as possible.
Timing is everything.
J ust what influences timing of travel by different species is unresolved and remains a curiosity, but some causes can be deduced. Some seem poorly equipped for the apparent risks involved. M ale Allen's Hummingbirds arrive here on the coast to set up display territories, in hopes of luring migrating females to copulation, in the third week of January. We found a female Anna's incubating two eggs on a freezing cold December 30th, on a Redding Christmas Bird Count - far from any feeder or garden and with an apron of snow all around her nest's rim. As we stood wondering how this bird could find food, she flew to a manzanita bush and began foraging among its tiny pink bell-like flowers.