There are worse places to be on a late summer or early fall weekend than Cape Cod, especially if you’re after birds. The entire peninsula from Cuttyhunk Island to Monomoy and up the outer cape through Cape Cod National Seashore is a shorebird haven as well as a migrant trap for songbirds headed south down the Atlantic Coast. The waters off the cape aren’t too shabby for birding either, with seabirds galore to be had on pelagic birding trips.

Autumn travel may be all about the colors. Leaf-watchers head to Acadia, Shenandoah, and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks in droves. Traffic jams aside, that’s a fine way to spend September and October. But before the leaves change, the birdwatchers are out looking for a lot of brown. The first weekend of September, after all, is World Shorebirds Day.

There’s more to Rocky Mountain National Park than the extraordinary views from Trail Ridge Road. Willow-choked streams, open meadows, pine forests, and all the edges where those habitats meet make for a park bursting with birding opportunities. After a not particularly spectacular time up in the tundra, I enjoyed a couple wonderful birding days in two very different habitats last month. This is the story of the first of those days.

You’re wandering around on a spring day in Shenandoah National Park and you see a bird fluttering around at Big Meadows. You snap a photograph and the bird disappears. Your field guide isn’t helping much. There are just too many birds that look alike. Now, what do you do?