Q: Walking along the river I heard a bird that my bird song app identified as a warbling vireo. My bird guide only shows a red-eyed vireo, are they the same? Wish I could see the bird.
A: Once you hear a warbling vireo, it’s easy to identify this species by its song — a repeat of 15 melodious notes, one of the prettiest and longest songs in the bird world. It’s described as fast and rollicking, repeated frequently near nesting sites, which are often near water. Warbling vireos are small and well camouflaged, with gray-green feathers, so the bird’s song is its most distinctive feature (hear and see the bird here: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Warbling_Vireo/). It’s in the same family as the red-eyed vireo but they’re very different birds. Some folks use a zippy mnemonic to remember the pattern of this bird’s long song: “If I see you, I will seize you, and I’ll squeeze you till you squirt.”

North in summer?
Q: I saw several flocks of Canada geese flying toward the northwest in early June. It seemed late in the season for them to be migrating.
A: These weren’t late migratory birds — instead, you were seeing an example of a phenomenon called molt migration, an early-summer activity in the waterfowl world. Ducks and geese lose all their flight feathers at once, before growing new ones, so once the breeding season is underway, many unmated males tend to head north. They travel to Canadian peat lands or boreal forest areas to wait out the molting process, which renders them flightless for up to seven weeks. They rely on the northern wetlands’ rich food before heading back to breeding grounds with their new flight feathers in place. Female waterfowl raise their brood and then molt nearby, where they feel safe while flightless.

Edgy crow
Q: I had to change my usual walking route in my neighborhood because of a crow. This bird sits on top of a big front-yard tree and yells at anyone walking on the sidewalk, and sometimes flies low overhead. Why is it doing this?
A: I walked that same route, after you provided the location, and a crow on top of a large evergreen cawed at me, too. I suspect there’s a crow’s nest in the neighborhood, and this crow feels he has to protect it by threatening those that pass nearby. He’s probably not one of the parent birds, but could be one of their offspring from a previous year who’s spending time assisting his parents. Such “helpers at the nest” are not uncommon in the crow world.
Early birds
Q: I got up at 3:30 a.m. to see the aurora borealis some weeks ago, and a robin was singing at that early hour. It sounded loud enough to wake people up and I’m wondering if this is normal or was something wrong?
A: This is entirely normal: American robins sing at dawn in spring and summer, and some robins begin to sing very early, before there’s even a hint of light in the east. Northern cardinals also start singing at an early hour, sometimes as early as 4 a.m.