I recently watched the New York City based documentary Birders: The Central Park Effect*, which explains that every year, on select mornings in May, urban forests come alive with an abundance of avian life. So last week, I ventured over to nearby Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, RI, a well-known migrant stop-over within city limits, to witness this effect first-hand (or first-eye and ear, in this case). Arriving at 6:30am, I found several other birders, seemingly as eager as I was to greet the birds, already queued up outside the entrance gates, which remained locked until a little before 7am. After an enjoyable group exploration of the cemetery, I set off on my own to appreciate a few more species and to be amazed by a beautiful male Black-throated Blue Warbler who was singing buzzily in a flowering crab apple tree.
*If you haven’t seen the film yet, I recommend borrowing a copy from a local library.
