What turns up in a backyard changes through the year, sometimes dramatically. Here is what each season brings.
Seasonal · Phenology · CalendarThe yard you stand in is four different yards over the course of a year.
The cast of birds turns over twice. The insects appear, peak, and disappear on staggered schedules. The plants you depend on for color and structure are doing entirely different jobs in May than in October. Knowing the seasonal rhythm makes a yard easier to read, and easier to set up so something interesting is always happening.
Migrating birds return north, butterflies emerge, and early wildflowers bloom. Look for warblers passing through, mourning cloak butterflies, and the first goldenrod stems pushing up.
The shift starts before you notice it. Red-winged blackbirds usually arrive in February in much of the U.S. and start staking territory weeks before the leaves are out. By April, the dawn chorus is fully reassembled.
Peak diversity. Hummingbirds visit feeders, native bees work milkweed and bee balm, and fledglings learn to fly. Best season for plant identification, since most species are in bloom.
Watch for the second wave. A yard that's quiet in mid-July often picks back up in August, with monarchs, late-season swallowtails, and goldfinches that nest later than almost any other songbird.
Migration season. Watch for monarchs heading south, raptors riding thermals, and warblers in muted plumage. Late-blooming asters and goldenrod feed pollinators preparing for winter.
This is the most important time of year for native asters. Their nectar fuels the monarch migration south, and the seedheads they leave behind feed juncos and finches into December.
Resident birds gather around food sources: chickadees, cardinals, nuthatches, juncos. Snow makes tracks easier to follow, and owl calls carry further at night than at any other time of year.
The fewer species you see, the more obvious the regulars become. A January feeder is a chance to learn ten birds well rather than fifty in passing.
The months above are a North American mid-latitude average. A yard in coastal Georgia and a yard in central Minnesota are running on different clocks. The order of events tends to hold even when the dates shift: returning birds first, then early bloomers, then the long summer span, then the migration south.
A single cold night collapses the wasp and yellowjacket colonies that have been growing all summer, knocks back the annual flowers, and triggers the shift from migrant birds to winter regulars. In a lot of yards it's the most visible date on the natural calendar, even more than the first warm day of spring.