What is that bird you’ve just spotted? Whether you’re in your or away from home, there are times when unfamiliar species challenge your ability to identify them. Birds that have unusual or even similar markings are often difficult to sort out. Birds that pass through our backyards and neighborhood parks as they follow the Atlantic Flyway during spring and fall migrations can be particularly vexing. Spring birds often feed near the crowns of trees amid dense foliage. Even though they’re apt to sing and have bright plumage, it’s not easy to find them. During fall migration, birds often have confusing colors or markings, are silent, and pass through unnoticed by birders.

Each spring, I face the same dilemma: Stay in Richmond and revisit the tried-and-true sites along the James River to enjoy songbird migration, or discover and explore a new migratory site far from home. Despite the usual misgivings before such a trip, I traveled in June to Churchill, Manitoba, in arctic Canada, a popular site among birders, to find birds returning to their boreal nesting grounds. The high point is finding birds decked out in the full splendor of their breeding plumage.

With fall migration well under way, our songbirds have begun heading south for the winter. Accompanying the stream of southbound songbirds, and much more visible overhead, you’ll find several species of raptors that are more active in our backyards and neighborhoods during seasonal migration. The four most common in our area are sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks (called accipiters), and red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks (classified as buteos).

During humid summer evenings, we have an opportunity to watch a different side of birdlife that moves around our backyards and neighborhoods. As the birds prepare for their nighttime roosts, you’ll see nocturnal routines that repeat night after night among our avian residents. Before nightfall, small flocks of blackbirds sweep overhead and you might see a string of common grackles slowly fly south, stretching in an irregular line with a few stragglers bringing up the rear. Overhead flight patterns are unhurried at this time of day, but you can tell that familiar roosts are in their sight.

During the summer doldrums, bird activity drops off dramatically around central Virginia. By late July, most chicks have fledged, and parents have earned some well-deserved rest and relaxation. The summer heat and humidity seem to bring bird life to a standstill except for morning and evening foraging. So it’s a welcome thing to find purple martins gathering in downtown Richmond in late July preparing for their southern migration. They gather by the thousands in a small row of Bradford pear trees near the 17th Street Farmers’ Market, and this twilight parade is a spectacle you won’t want to miss.

During the spring, when songbirds surge northward along the Atlantic flyway and descend into our backyards and neighborhood parks, we usually watch for brightly colored warblers, grosbeaks, tanagers and orioles. Almost 30 warbler species sweep through Virginia on their journey northward to breeding grounds. Of these, two dozen breed throughout our coastal plain and mountain habitats, and species that continue northward often stop briefly to rest and feed in our area.

If you have not yet visited the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, now’s the time to take advantage of a great introductory van tour to explore the 4,000-acre wilderness at the edge of Suffolk, sponsored by the Suffolk Visitor Center. The refuge is a busy migratory stop of the Atlantic Flyway, where numerous songbirds and warblers stop to rest and feed on their way to northern breeding grounds. During spring and early summer, you’ll be amazed at the nonstop serenade of birdsong and the constant motion of brightly colored birds in flight.

Flyways and Byways Unexpected visitors for winter bird count If you took part in the Great Backyard Bird Count sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology during Presidents Day weekend last month, you enjoyed fine weather for winter birding. Crisp, clear mornings brought lots of birds to our backyard feeders early to forage as the temperature rose.

During winter months, many waterbirds head to Virginia to escape the cold weather that has blanketed their feeding grounds with snow and ice. These include such seasonal visitors as geese, swans, ducks and a few shorebird species as well as our backyard favorites, juncos and white-throated sparrows. The best place in the state to find migratory waterbirds is the Eastern Shore. A favorite winter destination of many Virginia birders is the 14,000-acre Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.

Winter can be an unusually quiet and slow time for bird life in our backyards and neighborhoods. But we can add some zest to our favorite pastime by participating in the annual Great Backyard Bird Count sponsored each February by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. This will be the 12th annual citizen-science event in which your personal observations help the Cornell team track bird-life trends across North America, and your tally will help their information database grow larger and more accurate.

The holiday season started early this year, the day before Thanksgiving, when a yule log was delivered to my front porch from Ashley and Tyler Owen’s backyard in Hanover County. This was no ordinary log. Recent high winds toppled a small dead tree that showed years of wear and tear from visiting birds. Throughout North America, about 85 species excavate or use nesting holes in snag trees. Woodpeckers are the largest group of cavity users, but nesters range from ducks and large owls to bluebirds and tiny flycatchers and chickadees.