Fall is like spring in reverse. As the sun passes through the autumnal equinox, we get cooler days and nights, refreshing rains and the same duration and angle of sunlight. While many migratory birds began following the sun south as early as July and others follow through October, year-round resident birds and tree frogs perk up like it’s spring again.

Juvenile Anna’s hummingbirds practice the high climb and free-fall of territorial display dives, while individual Pacific tree frogs softly, and sometimes hoarsely, chirp “rrrribit.”

After a relatively quiet and dry August, songbirds start up a morning chorus. Brown creepers sing in high thin notes, Bewick’s wrens stridently show off their vocal variety, Hutton’s vireo repeatedly calls out “suuweet” while sparrows and other birds chime in. This annual resurgence of song is captured beautifully in Susan Stile’s poem (title same as closing line):

“When the birds are cacophonic in the trees and on the verge,

Of the fields in mid-October when the cold is like a scourge.

It is not delight in winter that makes feathered voices surge,

But the autumnal recrudescence of the amatory urge.

When the frost is on the punkin’ and when leaf and branch diverge,

Birds with hormones reawakened sing a paean, not a dirge.

What’s the reason for their warbling? Why on earth this late-year splurge?

The autumnal recrudescence of the amatory urge.”

Yet this reawakened chorus is also peppered with the many new voices of juvenile songbirds learning to sing the songs of their parents. Although the pitch or pattern is changed, the underlying chords are recognizable, except for some owls.

Every September I’m asked, “What’s the name of all of those owls screeching?” Screech owls? No, the Western screech owl is rare on Vashon, and it’s call is a series of soft, hollow whistles ending in a rhythm, much like a bouncing ping pong ball coming to a standstill. Although the barn owl shrieks a startlingly hissing screech that will raise your goosebumps, the abundant screechers of September are most often the juvenile vocalizations of either one of our two larger species, the great horned owl or the slightly smaller barred owl. By the next summer their screeches mature to the more familiar variations of “hu-hu-hu, hoo hoo” or “hoo-hoo-to-whooo-ooo” for each, respectively. A simple mnemonic for the great horned owl is “You awake? Me too,” while the barred owl is “Who cooks for you?”

Meanwhile, resident birds are also getting ready for winter. Most do fine building up their food caches and finding shelter, but some persistent woodpeckers seek a more comfortable roost. Second in size to the huge pileated woodpecker (caricatured as Woody the Woodpecker), the beautiful northern flicker likes to peck incessantly on anything that makes noise. It seems flickers are the percussion section of the chorus and their favorite instruments are metal rain gutters, downspouts and flashing on chimneys. They are most percussive in spring when attracting a mate. I suspect they’re playing the flicker version of “I’ve got rhythm, music and my girl, who could ask for anything more?” Most of this spring exuberance is usually harmless to homes, except in autumn as they consider roof eaves and vents a comfy winter roost.

Years ago, a flicker succeeded in breaking through the metal screen of one of our roof vent holes. It pulled out most of the fiberglass insulation but left some inside for a cozier roost. We could hear it through our bedroom ceiling, softly scratching and shuffling around at bedtime and sunrise. I worried about damage to the ceiling dry wall. So we scooted that bird out and placed a heavier gauge wire screening over all of our roof vents. The evictee seems content, at least for now, to sit under the dry shelter of the eaves, but it and other flickers are testing those vent holes daily.

In the midst of all this autumnal activity, winter is waiting in the wings as the solstice nears. Although I marvel at how our winter resident birds endure, especially those Anna’s hummingbirds, I can already feel a recrudescence of the urge to fly south on a big silver bird. Costa Rica sounds nice.

Learn more

Curious to know which birds stay and which migrate? Check out the Vashon Audubon website to download a free checklist of birds by season. www.vashonaudubon.org/media/VMIAS_Checklist09.pdf

—Alan Huggins is a lifelong learner who enjoys birds and nature. This is the first of a series of columns he plans to write

about birds on Vashon.