Date: 5/19/26 3:58 pm From: Dennis Paulson via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: [Tweeters] migration isn't over
I just had two first-year male Western Tanagers at our fountain. They don’t breed in our Maple Leaf neighborhood, as far as I know, but we see them almost every year in migration.
The sound of moving water attracts migrants out of the trees, and I highly recommend it for attracting birds that you might not see otherwise. These two birds came at the same time, the only ones so far this year, and it does make you wonder if two birds of the same species might stick together during nocturnal migration. It also could be that these two found each other during the day and were just were hanging out together for a while, as four eyes are better than two at detecting potential predators. But they came together and left together.
The tanagers were scared away by a Band-tailed Pigeon that flew down to the fountain, then by an American Robin, but they would come back and continue bathing and squabbling. If they were buddies, why fight over a pool that was big enough for both? But birds often do defend the little space around them against birds of the same species, even when flocking together. They spent a total of nine minutes at the fountain, providing all the photo ops I could have hoped for.
