Last of the Season – LIFE IN THE LOWER SUSQUEHANNA RIVER WATERSHED

For migrating birds, the spring season is drawing to a close. The last of the Neotropical songbirds are now trickling through while the final waves of sandpipers and other shorebirds may have already cleared our region to continue their long journey north to breeding grounds in Canada and Alaska. From earlier this week…

A northbound Semipalmated Plover during a stopover in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed. These smaller cousins of our local double-banded Killdeer are a tundra nesting species.

Semipalmated Plover and Least Sandpipers — A Semipalmated Plover and a small flock of Least Sandpipers feed and recharge on a mudflat.

A Semipalmated Sandpiper (left) and a Least Sandpiper. — A Semipalmated Sandpiper (left) and a Least Sandpiper during a migration break. The latter species is on its way to taiga wetlands in Canada and Alaska to breed. Like the Semipalmated Plover, the Semipalmated Sandpiper continues beyond the taiga regions to nest in the tundra of the far north.

This Greater Yellowlegs needs to hustle if it’s going to reach the species’ nesting grounds in the taiga of Canada in time to participate in this year’s breeding cycle. Otherwise, it may be among the early birds we see coming back south through our area as soon as late June, during the start of the fall migration.

You read it right. “Fall migration” often gets going by the first day of summer—southbound birds, less than a month away!

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