Enjoying Fall in Encino

Fall is now here and the warblers have arrived in Encino this week – their wonderful aerial acrobatics are on display outside. I had seen yellow warblers a few weeks ago but these were the first yellow-rumped (Audubon) warblers of the season and they are more spectacular. They live as far north as Alaska and the Yukon in summer and then millions of them migrate south for the winter. Some get off the ride here in Encino and they will be here till April, by which time there’s a greater splash of color on their plumage.

The turf wars in the garden will resume – there are already many mockingbirds, jays, phoebes, towhees, wrens and a few grosbeaks, kinglets, robins, woodpeckers and other birds, and somehow room will be found to accommodate the horde of new arrivals. Those of us who love birds always wonder if everybody else thinks we’re insane but whatever…

Bird migration is one of the great mysteries of science, because we only have a vague idea of how the various species manage it (magnetoception, etc.). Growing up in New Zealand I used to see the godwits preparing for their annual migrations, every night for weeks. Tens of thousands of them streaming across the sky in waves. It impressed on me early on that humans are only one species on this amazing planet. As Wikipedia explains, “some Bar-tailed Godwits have the longest known non-stop flight of any migrant, flying 11,000 km from Alaska to their New Zealand non-breeding areas. Prior to migration, 55 percent of their bodyweight is stored fat to fuel this uninterrupted journey.” It puts human endeavors in perspective, no?