A few weeks ago, early mornings were raucous with birdsong. Now, the predawn darkness is quiet, but for the occasional shout out of an owl or a woodcock. During the day, the crickets rule.

Where are the birds? The goldfinches are still busy, flying from the firs to the feeder to the flower garden, landing on a cosmos flower only to have the tender stalk plummet under their weight. The cardinal families are still barreling in and out of the trees, and the jays and crows are noisy as ever.

But the songbirds, for the most part, have packed up and headed south. The insect eaters are leaving now, in advance of the freeze. The hummingbirds have disappeared, before the nectar can dry up. Only the seed eaters (and the meat eaters) are left.

We haven’t had frost yet, but it could come any day, and the world knows it. The flowering bushes and annuals are doing their late summer thing — cosmos, zinnias, butterfly bush, hydrangea, all in full regalia, each stem with ample blossoms, as if they could postpone winter by promising endless bloom. The birds are not fooled.

In the garden, the zucchini and cucumber plants, which looked spent a few weeks ago, are sending out encouraging new leaves and new fruits, and we’re picking tender little zukes and cukes like it’s July, except that we’re climbing over old, graying and brittle stems and leaves to find them. The pumpkin and squash vines are just tired, their huge leaves drooping, revealing the surprises they’ve been hiding: a clutch of acorn squash, a 40-pound pumpkin, a sudden spaghetti squash that climbed over the stone wall.

In school, the fourth-graders are hatching monarch butterflies, carrying caterpillars in jars onto the school bus, and transferring them to the aquarium in the classroom. They’re battling the seasonal clock too, hoping to release butterflies before it’s too cold for them to make it to Mexico.

Even the woods sound different. A branch snaps or a dry leaf falls, and it echoes in the birdless silence. Was that a deer? Or a chipmunk? The background chatter is gone.

Last week I was gathering kindling in the woods behind the barn, when I scared off a red fox, lurking behind the clearing and eyeing the outdoor chickens. The barred rock laying hens live in the chicken coop, but the half-wild bantams roost in the trees. They were out scratching for bugs and worms, along with our lone mother hen, a mixed-breed half-banty named Sister, with her three midsized chicks. Sister just moved her family from the safety of a rabbit hutch to a nightly roost in the pine trees. Which was a bad idea, since the littlest chick doesn’t have all her wing feathers yet.

It was that danger zone between day and dusk, when the foxes can run through the yard and we have to trust the chickens to be faster and smarter. “Up, up!” I yelled. “There are foxes out!”

I looked up to see if anyone was roosting yet, and caught sight of an orange rooster, with a long green and black tail, 20 feet up in the tree. I also caught sight of two hawks, circling. They were not looking for flower seeds.

I brought out the dogs and told them to watch the banties while I got the little chick into the tree. Sister and the bigger chicks were already up, and the little one was cheeping piteously, hopping, but unable to make the flight to the lowest branch. I lifted her up, and she hopped farther up, by degrees, to her mother and safety.

I looked up and the hawks were gone. From their straight tails I guessed they were sharp shinned hawks, and they’ll be starting their migration soon too, catching the morning thermals. The songbirds prefer flying at night. The owls will stay for the winter, and we’ll hear them in the evenings and late in the night, when the woods are quiet.

And some far off day, when spring comes again, the rest of the birds will be back, greeting each morning with song and chatter.

Margaret Hartley is the Gazette’s Sunday and features editor. Greenpoint appears in the Gazette’s print edition Sundays on the Environment page.

Have a question or a topic you’d like addressed on Greenpoint? Email greenpoint@dailygazette.net.