Bird-watching Excursion

Today we went bird-watching instead of bird banding, which meant I got to sleep in 15 minutes (yay...). We left campus at 7:00am, and we drove to Lake Hope, which is located within Zaleski State Forest. It was a really clear, sunny morning, with temperatures starting around 65F but warming up to the mid-70s by the time we left around 11am.

We started by walking out on a ridgetop that had been shelterwood cut. This means that all the trees of a certain size were cut, leaving others to keep growing and reseed the area. This first habitat was very open with many grasses and "prairie" plants. I heard and saw many birds, such as:

• Blue jay
• Pileated woodpecker
• White-eyed vireo
• White-eyed vireos have variable songs, but they usually have a sharp "chip!" at the end
• Carolina chickadee
• Downy woodpecker
• Gray catbird
• Cedar waxwing
• These birds fly in large flocks so that they can take advantage of seasonal food sources, such as berries. The more eyes looking for ripe fruit, the better.
• Eastern wood-pewee


• Like a lot of birds, the pewee got its name from its call. It goes, "peeWEEEEEE"
• Eastern screech owl
• One of the instructors started doing a screech owl call, and one in the area heard and responded!
• American redstart
• Rose-breasted grosbeak
• Eastern towhee

My peers/instructors heard and saw many others, including:

• Tennessee warbler
• Prairie warbler
• Trail's flycatcher
• Bay-breasted warbler
• Red-tailed hawk
• Black and white warbler
• Yellow-billed cuckoo
• Yellow-throated vireo

At 9:35, we moved to a new location by the old iron furnace so that we could walk around the lake and look for new species.  Unlike the first habitat, which was very open, this second habitat was mostly closed-canopy. Birds that my peers and I saw and heard here included:

• Eastern wood-pewee
• American goldfinch
• Cedar waxwing
• White-eyed vireo
• Carolina chickadee
• Indigo bunting
• American crow
• Downy woodpecker
• Hooded warbler
• Tenessee warbler
• Blue jay
• Gray catbird
• Wood duck
• Osprey
• Red-shouldered hawk
• Eastern phoebe
• Belted kingfisher


• Turkey vulture
• Yellow-throated vireo
• Red-bellied woodpecker
• Pine warbler
• Red-tailed hawk
• This juvenile hawk came and perched in a tree very close to us, so my class got a great view through our binoculars.

We got to see lots of birds we hadn't seen yet, and I learned a lot of new calls! All in all, it was an excellent morning at Lake Hope.