This juvenile hummingbird used a tree perch that allowed it to keep an eye on two nectar feeders — and chase away others that might want to take a drink. While the adult male ruby-throated hummingbirds have mostly left, young birds hatched this summer and the females remain. (Betsy Bloom/Daily News photos)

And so here we are, September, the start of meteorological fall after a summer that seemed far too fleeting.

The area animals and plants, of course, have no such artificial dates to mark when the seasons turn — and don’t need it. They take their cues from the waning daylight.

At the start of August, the sun rose at 5:35 a.m. and set at 8:21 p.m. in Iron Mountain. By Wednesday, that had dialed back to 6:12 a.m. and 7:32 p.m. — roughly 90 fewer minutes of daylight.

By the end of September, the sun won’t rise until 6:49 a.m. and will be gone by 6:34 p.m., whittling away more than two hours of daytime.

August, in essence, is May backwards. The last of the migratory birds tend to arrive in May. The earliest of the Upper Peninsula migrants depart in August.

A juvenile northern flicker forages in the grass. Though a woodpecker, it feeds on the ground rather than in trees and tree bark. That’s why unlike the more familiar downy and hairy woodpeckers, the flickers migrate south for the winter months.

The same reverse pattern holds for April and September, as the main avian wave moves in and out in those two months.

The signs of the shifting seasons already are abundant. The red-winged blackbirds and common grackles again are flocking together, after staking out separate territories for breeding, though they may not depart for several weeks.

The variety of warblers and other neotropical songbirds moving through the area is growing, flitting through trees and foliage beginning to show the first touches of color.

A squadron of common nighthawks passed overhead at Six Mile Lake in late August, diving and swooping as they rode the headwinds of a looming thunderstorm. As they feed on flying insects, they don’t arrive here until May and head back early to winter in Central and South America.

Mature male ruby-throated hummingbirds have been absent for at least a week. That fits with the first back, first to leave pattern of many of the songbirds — the males will make the trip first in spring to establish territories before the females come back. By going south sooner, the males leave the shrinking flower and nectar sources to the females and year’s juveniles, so they can build up before they start their journey, which will take them to Mexico and Central America.

Those juveniles remain, with more still to come from the north, so keep those feeders up, cleaned and refreshed until freezing temperatures set in. As always, watch for unusually colored hummingbirds, especially those touched with orange or rust, as it might be a rufous, a western species that regularly strays east into the state during migration, often appearing late into the fall.

Baltimore orioles, after successfully nesting, have vanished. At least at Six Mile Lake, the rose-breasted grosbeaks were few in number this summer and unseen or heard since July.

Yellow-bellied sapsucker fledglings that had replaced the orioles at the oranges in July and August have become scarce. Ground-feeding northern flickers, though, are showing up in numbers now, combing through the yard like robins. These are our two main migratory woodpeckers, though the red-headed that turns up in some parts of the area is known to make short-distance moves south.

News came earlier this week that avian influenza had re-emerged in Minnesota and Indiana after seeming to fade at the end of May. This was predicted, that as birds enter fall migration the “bird flu” would return as well. No word yet on whether wildlife officials are again recommending putting away the feeders as was done in the spring. But those with domestic poultry should take note. Since the most vulnerable species are waterfowl and other birds that either feed on or dwell in close proximity to waterfowl, it might not re-surface here until ducks and geese begin migration, which usually comes later in the fall.

Betsy Bloom can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 240, or bbloom@ironmountaindailynews.com.

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