A pal spent a lot of time staring out his office window this fall.

Although thankful for his job and its opportunities, impatience nagged my friend. He wanted to get up and go.

“Now,” he said.

The fellow labeled his anxiety “Zugunruhe.” That is the word for avian restlessness and agitation at the onset of migration.

People are nature, I believe. Just like birds and other migratory species, we operate under hormonal, light and other internal workings that push us along.

From shorebirds to songbirds to birds of prey, many species begin to increase evening and nighttime movement during summer. Sooner or later, they fly off into the dark.

I notice that local songbirds begin to disappear in late July and early August.

At the same time, the volume of chips, zips and other sounds skyrockets in the night sky.

In my neighborhood, some of the first species heard overhead include chipping sparrow, veery (a thrush) and yellow warbler.

During August, all sorts of birds land before dawn in my backyard to refuel on the way south. Sometimes, they include bigger songbirds, which still call or sing sporadically, such as Baltimore oriole, great-crested flycatcher and rose-breasted grosbeak.

By the end of September the migrant population shifts from insect munchers to seedeaters, especially sparrows, which produce a range of chipping noises.

Two early fall migrants that show up every year by our kitchen window are the gray catbird, which makes “meow” sounds and the sharply detailed sparrow relative, the Eastern towhee, known for its “chewink” call.

Most any thick planting might harbor migrating birds. An elongated yew shrub two blocks from Providence Police Department headquarters near downtown and Route 95 shelters mockingbirds during breeding season and migrants in fall. It’s a one-shrub ecosystem in the concrete environment.

When my friend tells me that he pines to start life anew, he dreams of returning to the Southwest, which he visited decades ago.

In contrast, many migrating birds are in their first year of life.

They are embarking on maiden flights to warmer places they have never seen.

Some of the birds that find food and shelter around my house each fall originate in the boreal forests and tundra of the far north.

In the first half of October, for example, I heard my first golden-crowned kinglets of the season. Not much bigger than our local hummingbird, the kinglets belt out a high-note “tsee, tsee, tsee.”

I also found autumn’s opening flocks of white-throated sparrows and dark-eyed juncos, two songbirds that spend the winter here (as do a few kinglets).

In late October, yellow-rumped warblers chipped through the neighborhood. The only nest I ever found of this bird was in a subalpine tree near a fjord in northern Newfoundland.

By early November, the night sky quiets. Only juncos twitter at dawn, besides the occasional crow “caw,” blue jay “jeer” or northern cardinal “chip.”

Song-gurgling, fruit-seeking robins arrive this time of year to devour ripened crabapples. Irregularly, waxwings show up to join them. Then they vanish to find fruit elsewhere.

There is little trace of the insect life that swarmed over fall-flowering ornamentals just three weeks ago. A twig-attached, foam-like, brown container, protecting hundreds of eggs, is the only sign that a Cuban-cigar-sized praying mantis reigned over the garden through mid-October. Trees that flamed in gold, orange, red and yellow stand bare. At their base, squirrels compete for dwindling acorns.

Just like daylight savings time, my friend’s wanderlust vanished the first of November.

I expect that will be the case, at least until Zugunruhe returns again.

Scott Turner is a Providence-based nature writer. His columns appear here each Saturday ( scottturnerster@gmail.com).