By Tony Gazso, Interpretive Naturalist

The first robins of spring! Bluebirds! These two birds are seemingly synonymous with the arrival of spring, but which is the true harbinger of spring? It’s actually neither. In fact, both of those birds are found in our area year-round. The true sign of spring is the arrival of a small grayish bird, the Eastern phoebe.

Phoebes are birds in the flycatcher family. Their pointed and slightly widened bills are perfect for catching flies. But it’s not just flies they catch, but all manner of flying insects! Phoebes eat almost much any insect from gnats to wasps to dragonflies. Eastern phoebes (the only phoebe species in the eastern U.S.) have a habit of wagging their tails nearly constantly, which is a good way to identify them. They are a grayish brown above and an off-white to slightly yellowish below. Unlike other similar-looking flycatchers, phoebes lack distinct wingbars. They appear large-headed and often fly from their perches, nab an insect in mid-air, and return to the same perch.

Eastern phoebes are typically loners, with even mating pairs spending little time together. They nest throughout our region, building small cup-shaped nests out of moss and lichen on rocky cliffsides, usually under an overhang, though they sometimes use the sides of buildings. Nests are usually used year after year though sometimes they move in and “renovate” robin's nests. Some old phoebe nests can be seen in the sandstone rock faces in the gorge at Penitentiary Glen Reservation. In spring and summer, their buzzy “fee-bee!” sound can be heard throughout Ohio.

So, what makes them a sign of spring? Eastern phoebes spend their winters much further north than many migratory birds, sometimes as far north as the Washington, D.C. area. This means that while they begin their journey north around the same time as other songbirds, they arrive much sooner since they’ve had less distance to cover. Eastern phoebes typically arrive in our area in mid to late March right as spring begins, making them one of the true marks of spring’s arrival.