After four growing seasons, our wishes for our native plant garden are coming true!
The holiday season is a good time to reflect on the things that actually worked out well this year – and our four year old native garden truly has. Lots of migratory birds raised their young here – exactly what we hoped for when we started this project! Here’s a few of them.
Here in the Mount Washington Valley we hear American Redstarts all summer long. They are easier to spot than other migrants as they flash their orange tails to startle insects. Some energetic males have two mates at the same time – with nests separated by a quarter mile! I would love to track those nests down some day!
Photo: Rhododendrites CC-BY-SA 4.0
It is amazing to me that for these songbirds every garden in their path can be a stopping point while migrating. This Cornell University map (right) shows how interconnected we are. The birds may stop for a bit of food and move on, or if conditions are right, they may raise their young in your garden. We love having them stay for the summer! These amazing maps are available for nearly every bird species world-wide.
Another bird nesting nearby is the Black-and-white Warbler, one of the first to arrive and easiest to spot. We hear its’ squeaky song all summer, telling us they are raising young here. They build little cup-shaped nests in the leaf litter on the forest floor, but they hide them well, and we’ve never found one.
Photo: Rhododendrites CC-BY-SA 4.0
Red-eyed Vireos (right) win the prize among our garden breeders for the longest migrations, some traveling all the way from the Amazon Basin in Brazil! They are common breeders where they find enough insects to raise their young. We hear them singing loudly and continuously all day, every day, all summer long.
Photo: Rhododendrites CC-BY-SA 4.0
We don’t hear Ovenbirds as often as some of the others, but their piercing, insistent teacher-teacher-teacher song takes the prize for the loudest of the songbirds. Its’ monotonous tone always sounds the same to us, but individual birds recognize each song as unique!
Photo: Rhododendrites CC-BY-SA 4.0
Here are a few other migrants raising young in and around our garden – Indigo Buntings (below left), Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (top right) and Chestnut-sided Warblers (bottom right).
Next year we will be watching for signs of nesting from other likely species, such as Black-throated Blue and Black-throated Green Warblers. That’s the fun of it – you never know who may show up if you’ve got enough food for them! Thanks for reading my blog this year – and best wishes to you for 2025.