I’m so wear-ry. We’ve begun to hear that plaintive, descending four-note song over the last several of weeks which can only mean one thing: The golden-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia atricapilla) have arrived as they do each year right around the fall equinox.
And they likely ARE a bit weary after migrating thousands of miles from their summer breeding grounds in the shrubby tundra of Canada and Alaska to warmer latitudes along the western United States, including the Bay Area. Researchers at UC Santa Cruz recently discovered that these migratory sparrows return to the same exact patch of shrubs or trees year after year to spend the fall and winter in mixed flocks feeding on seeds and insects.
Each fall brings a torrent of feathers to the Bay Area. With freezing winter weather approaching, birds across the world are moving south to areas that have more abundant food and good nesting sites. For some bird species, this means flying from the Arctic as far south as Central and South America. Year after year, these migrating birds follow the same flight paths, forming great north-south sky highways known as “flyways.”
The Bay Area sits at the center of the Pacific Flyway, which extends from the high Arctic to Mexico — approximately 4,000 miles.
Hearing their melancholy notes for the first time is a herald of fall, as they are one of the first migratory songbirds to arrive in our area. Unlike many overwintering songbirds who mainly sing during the summer breeding season, golden-crowned sparrows sing their distinctive song year-round (listen here).
Keep your ear tuned for these seasonal neighbors along forest edges, shrubby areas and even in your own yard, and know without looking at a calendar that the seasons have changed, and the miraculous aerial event that is the annual fall bird migration has begun. Look up, listen and be awed.