While parents are thinking about back to school, nature has already set the wheels of fall migration in motion. For weeks, adult shorebirds have been leaving their Arctic breeding grounds, eventually heading to shorelines from the Gulf Coast to the tropics. Now juveniles, using hereditary mapping data coded in their genes, follow their parents south. They are on their own. 

Songbirds are getting in on the act too. Swallows are on the move, often gathering by the hundreds over fields and water as they fatten up with flying insects for the trip. Warblers have begun to leave their summer homes, while birds like grosbeaks, flycatchers and thrushes will soon be joining them. The big push for these birds will come from late August through mid-September but it won’t be a rush like in spring. Migrants usually take their time on the way south. The weather is still good, food is abundant and they have plenty of time to fatten up for the trip ahead. What’s the rush?

Happy Birding!

Brian Morin

Publisher of Ontario Birding News