As days get longer, nature’s most reliable signal that spring is coming is that some of our birds decide that it is time to nest. But … in January?

Some folks have been surprised to hear that the answer to this question is yes, as they have seen nesting behaviors in birds lately. It is remarkable that despite some of the coldest days and nights of the winter still ahead of us, and in spite of (hopefully) many more feet of snow to come this season, some birds are already getting a start to their nesting season. On this cold Sunday, while we read the news in the comfort of our homes, let’s take a second to acknowledge the feathered parents sitting on nests right now, incubating eggs that will become the next generation of our backyard birds.

Perhaps one of the most obvious, or especially well known, of these early nesters is the bald eagle. One common trait among birds is that the larger they are, the longer they need to raise their young, which makes sense when you think about it. A tiny black-capped chickadee only needs about two weeks (12-16 days) after hatching to fledge, but a massive bald eagle can take up to 14 weeks.

There is also a lot of development going on inside the eggs. Chickadees only need to incubate their eggs for 12-13 days, while eagles take closer to 35 days. We are already over one-third of the year that an adult eagle has invested from laying to fledging, not to mention the months before that, when they are constructing or renovating their nests. In fact, during the Maine Bird Atlas (2018-23), we had volunteers report eagles tending to their nests as early as October in some years.

While we are probably still a few weeks away from any eagle laying an egg here in Maine, now is a great time to be on the lookout for adults pairing up.

It is usually very hard to tell male and female eagles apart, but mated pairs will often perch near each other, and a female’s larger size, up to 25% larger than a male, is more obvious with the direct comparison. If you do know of a nest near you, this is also a good time to watch for the adults to be adding material to existing nests. While most songbirds need to rebuild a nest every year, eagles will reuse nests for decades and also start constructing alternative nests in case something happens to the one they’ve been using.

Rivaling our eagles for the “Eager Nester” award is the great horned owl. Much of what I’ve just said about the size of eagles and their need for long nesting periods can also be applied to great horned owls, our largest nesting owl in Maine. Another important reason for these owls to start nesting early is that they want their chicks to be fledging around the time of greatest food availability. Chicks will begin hatching in Maine by April, if not earlier. It takes about six weeks before they are fledged, which syncs nicely with peak abundance of small mammals in the spring. It is worth it for owls to be incubating eggs during the cold of the winter if they are going to have higher reproductive success that year.

Speaking of reproductive success, one species that will take advantage of food availability to nest any chance they get is the red crossbill. Unlike the raptors mentioned above, crossbills are small songbirds, in the same family as the finches you see around your feeders. Crossbills, as their name suggests, have an amazing adaptation where the tips of their upper and lower mandibles are elongated and twist to opposite sides, causing them to cross. This unique feature allows them to pry open cones and extract the well-protected seeds inside. With this specialized access to food, they have adapted to nest nearly any time of the year when food is sufficient.

We’ve written a few times since the fall about the abundance of natural food on the landscape, called a “mast year,” and how birds have been taking advantage of those high-quality food sources instead of coming to your bird feeders. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve had multiple reports of crossbills early in the nesting process. This includes courtship behavior with males feeding females, and even pairs gathering nesting material to begin construction of their nests. Again, in contrast to the raptors above who take several months to fledge their young, these crossbills only need a month to get their eggs laid and chicks out of the nest: incubation lasts around 14 days and the chicks only take about 20 days to fledge.

There is one other group worth mentioning right now. I’ll categorize these as the “overly ambitious nesters.” Along with the longer days, we’ve also had some surprisingly warm mornings. These combine to give some of our local birds just enough confidence that spring is coming so their hormones start pumping and we see a variety of territorial behaviors. We also hear many of those “jazzed-up” birds right now, too. Tufted titmice are singing loudly; listen for a clear, repeating whistled “here-here.”

We’re also hearing rapid drumming of downy woodpeckers. Drumming is considered a song in woodpeckers because it is used to proclaim territory or attract a mate. These birds are becoming territorial early because, for lack of a better analogy, the early bird gets the worm. These birds want to be the first to establish a territory, the first to find a mate, and the first to fledge their young all for the same reasons discussed above: having the highest productivity.

However, many of these birds are going to have a rude awakening in the coming days as temperatures drop and food becomes buried by snow. The result will be a change of behaviors until we get some truer spring weather. Keep an eye and ear out for some of these fun behaviors this winter. There are several nests with webcams available on explore.org so you can watch as birds go through each stage of nesting. And consider joining me for a bird walk on Thursday mornings in Falmouth to enjoy the antics of hyped-up woodpeckers or hear the clear songs of titmice.

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