Last year, not my best birding year, I recorded 166 different species in Carbon County. You may be surprised to know that of that total only about a dozen species are year-round residents here.

Some arrive here in autumn, such as the northern juncos, white-throated sparrows and golden-crowned kinglets. They overwinter here only to return to summer breeding grounds in late winter. Most of my annual list’s birds arrived at different times from April through May to claim breeding areas and raise their young. These included red-eyed vireos, barn and tree swallows, scarlet tanagers, yellow warblers and house wrens.

A few birds stopped to feed in the Times News woodlands as they made their way farther north to breed. These included blackpoll and bay-breasted warblers. In today’s column I’ll highlight a few songbirds that remain in our woodlands all year.

The woodland birds that I’ll highlight of course can be found at your feeders or woodlots near your homes also. Finding food in summer is not too much of a problem. Most of the following songbirds make insects or small arthropods their chief food sources in spring through fall.

But these birds, to remain here through the challenging winter conditions, must be adaptable to add seeds or similar items to their diets.

One of my favorites are the black-capped chickadees. They nest in tree cavities, raise their young, and the small family groups generally forage for food in and around the same forests where they nested. Chickadees can eat overwintering insects and insect eggs but also small seeds.

Of course, if they live near you and your feeders, they will gladly accept the easier and reliable seed sources. Tufted titmice basically mimic what the chickadees do and are another year-round bird.

Woodpecker species, able to drill for grubs and insects in the tree trunks, are 365-day residents, too. Downy, pileated, red-bellied and a few hairy woodpeckers breed and overwinter in our neck of the woods.

Often feeding among the woodpeckers are the white-breasted nuthatches, spiraling headfirst down tree trunks gathering insects, insect eggs, spiders and also your seeds.

Generally, those few species that remain here all year are able to adapt to finding food during the cold winter months. For most of the other bird species that call this area home in summer it is not the cold that forces them to move, it is the fact that they can’t find enough of or the needed food.

Occasionally robins can be found overwintering here, they remained feeding on dried fruit sources found in food plots (crab­apples.) But insect eating warblers need to move south, some remaining in the deep South, or others heading to Central or South America. There they spend the winter, “bulking up” on tropical insects in order to make the migration back north in spring.

Whether they are year-round resident birds, or just making our forests their home, get out there and enjoy them.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: Bar-tailed godwits, in their migration, fly ___ without stopping. A. 18 hours, B. 24 hours, C. 3 days, D. 8 days.

Last Week’s Trivia: Wolf trees were named because they were like “lone wolves.”

Contact Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com.