Week of May 18, 2025 – May 24, 2025
by Anna Stunkel, Environmental Educator
If you wander outside on a mid-May day, what do you notice first in nature? For many of us, it might be birds! As I write this blog on the back deck of the Interpretive Center at Baltimore Woods, birds are singing in every direction. A flurry of goldfinches is chattering out by the field on the new property, an Eastern Phoebe is calling, “fee bee!” by a shed where they’ve nested for years, and Red-winged Blackbirds are singing “oak-a-lee!” in the distance. It’s hard not to notice birds, especially when so many are migrating through and establishing their nesting territories.
When I ask people how they developed a love of nature, birds are often featured in their answers. Some of us have seen “spark birds” that are ingrained in our memory, or witnessed incredible events like huge flocks of Snow Geese at Montezuma or big migration days at a hawkwatch. An introduction to birds can be as simple as watching them at your feeders, which is how it began for me as a kid. I kept a journal of different species and watched them every morning before school.
Whether you live in the middle of a big city or on a farm in the countryside, birds are all around. This makes it easy to share them with your friends and family, too. Some are easy to spot, like ducks in a local pond or pigeons on a city street, while others are a fun challenge to find like warblers as they flutter high in the trees. Birding has recently become a very popular hobby, especially during the pandemic when it helped many of us to find moments of peace. Also, as we become more reliant on things like our phones, computers, and sometimes overpacked schedules, birds provide a welcome return to nature. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, as of last year three in 10 Americans enjoy birding. You don’t need fancy binoculars, or even any binoculars at all, to enjoy looking and listening for birds.
If you’d like to learn more about birding, you can sign up for our Spring Feeder Friends program this Friday morning. We hope you’ve enjoyed observing the many birds who are around at this time of year!