Looks like I guessed right. The tracking map says a black-chin was sighted in my city yesterday. Welcome back, my little friends!
On a related note, my wife went out on the deck this morning at 4:15 and a bird flew into the house while the sliding door was open. Poor little thing was clinging to drapes, probably frightened to death. She was so immobile that I crept up and got a bucket over her, then slid a cover in. Took her outside and she flew off unharmed. Looked to be a female warbler. The first thing I did was to turn off all the lights so the only source would be from the open sliding door. Figured that if she did fly around in the room, she'd see that and fly out on her own. But she was far too scared for that, thank goodness. Getting her into the bucket risked no injury.
I learned that light trick dealing with baby chicks over the years. When you first let them loose, they have a tendency to get confused at night and not know how to get through obstacles between them and the hen house hatch, which is where chickens want to go after sundown. For example, they can be just feet away from the gap in the fence that lets them in, but they will just continually try to go through the chain link fence like they could when they were smaller. Easy solution is that they go where there's light, so you shine a bright flashlight at the gap in the fence, and that's where they go. Then you shine the light on the hen house hatch, and that's where they go, right on in, then you shut it up for the night.
