Lake Erie Birding Trip

During the weekend of November 6-8, the Ohio University ornithology class that I'm currently in took a field trip to the Lake Erie coastline to do some birding. This post is yet another of the class-related blog assignments the class has to do. You can read about my past labs and field trips at this link. This post is a summary of our Lake Erie birding trip. This will also be the last ornithology class related post!

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One of my most-anticipated trips of this semester was the ornithology class's annual trip to the Lake Erie coast. Every year they go in mid to late November, just in time for the migrating ducks, gulls, and other waterfowl to show up. I had heard how exciting this trip was from previous students, and I couldn't wait to take it! 

Sunrise from the beach at Old Woman Creek. Taken this May.

The trip actually began a day early for me. Due to certain circumstances, the class was scheduled to go up Saturday morning, bird that afternoon, bird all Sunday, and then head back Monday. I wanted to squeeze in a few more hours of birding, so I and the undergraduate TA Alayna Tokash decided to head up Friday night to we could go birding all Saturday morning while the others were making the 3 hour trip north. We stayed at Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve just outside of Huron, Ohio. You might have heard me mention Old Woman Creek before; I spent half of my summer living in the dormitories there while helping Maggie Hantak (an OU graduate student) with her Red-Backed Salamander research. Maggie was up at OWC for the weekend, still in the midst of her fall field season, so we all had a nice catch-up Friday night.

I do want to point out that there will be a serious lack of photos in this post. If you've ever seriously birded, you probably know it's hard to take photos at the same time. Switching between binoculars and a camera when birds are constantly coming in and out is a hard task, and people generally chooses to do one or the other at any given instance. I chose my binoculars and took essentially zero photos. I will be pulling some photos from my library though, so there will at least be some!

Two male Redheads with two male Ring-Necked Ducks in the background. Photo taken at A.W. Marion State Park in 2014.

Alayna and I woke up early on Saturday morning. We left Huron at 7:30 AM and headed straight to the famous Lorain Impoundment. The Lorain Impoundment contains a complex of docks, breakwalls, marshes, river water, open lake water, and more. This location, where a heavily-altered Black River flows into Lake Erie, has attracted a crazy array of rare species throughout the years, and has a great showing of expected species every year too. When Alayna and I went, there were hundreds of Ring-Billed Gulls, with fewer numbers of Herring and Bonaparte's Gulls mixed in. A Common Tern and four Great Black-Backed Gulls were a highlight along the breakwalls out in the lake. The freshwater marsh held a good assortment of waterfowl, including Ring-Necked Ducks, Redheads, Gadwalls, Mallards, Green-Winged Teals, Buffleheads, American Coots, and others. Three Dunlins, a species I've been wanting to see for years, were the highlight in the marsh. My complete list from this location can be seen here: Lorain Impoundment, Nov. 7

The barrier beach at Sheldon Marsh SNP during the summer. In winter, the bay shown harbors decent gull concentrations.

We left Lorain around 10 AM and headed back to Huron. The class was nearly there, so we ate some lunch and waited to meet up with them. Once the class came and got settled into Old Woman Creek, we all headed toward the nearby Sheldon Marsh Nature Preserve. Sheldon Marsh is an interesting preserve; there's some old fields, deciduous forest, marshes, and a very nice barrier beach next to a small bay. With this wide range of habitat available, Sheldon Marsh attracts a wide range of birds. We had the typical winter forest residents, including Golden-Crowned Kinglets, Dark-Eyed Juncos, American Tree Sparrows, and Yellow-Rumped Warblers. The marshes along the main trail were pretty unproductive, with only a few Mallards present. The barrier beach and bay held many Bonaparte's Gulls, Ring-Billed Gulls, and Herring Gulls. A large raft of Ruddy Ducks were floating way out, but their stiff tails and white cheeks made for an easy ID. We walked a bit down the barrier beach and decided to look on the other side of the island which protects a large marsh. This marsh was productive, holding hundreds and hundreds of ducks. Sadly our group scared most of them and they flushed. We did get to see a few Northern Pintails during the chaos, yet another species I've been wanting to see for years! To see my complete list of species from Sheldon Marsh, see this link: Sheldon Marsh SNP, Nov. 7

We stayed at Sheldon Marsh for a few hours, and that brought about the end of the first day. Well, at least the day time portion was over. The professor for the class, Dr. Kelly Williams, is also heavily involved in Project Owlnet. She use to run a Northern Saw-Whet Owl banding station in Ross County, which you can read about here in a post by blogger Jim McCormac. Since right now is migration time for the diminutive owl, Dr. Williams wanted to try and band any saw-whets which might be moving through Old Woman Creek. We set up nets Saturday night, but several hours brought no birds. We took the nets down and decided to try again the next night. 

The next day started early with another trip to the Lorain Impoundment. The goal was to show the class the species that Alayna and I had seen the previous day. Luckily the majority of the species were still present. We missed out on a few species, such as the Dunlin, but added a Northern Shoveler. You can check out the complete list of species here: Lorain Impoundment, Nov. 8

Scanning the lake for jaegars and Little Gulls. The class professor, Dr. Kelly Williams, is on the far left. I am the one in gray looking through spotting scope. Photo by Michelle Ward.

We finished up at Lorain and packed the vans to head to the Huron Pier. The Huron Pier is essentially just a man-made jetty of boulders that extends a bit into Lake Erie. It has a great view of open water, and also a great history of rarities. As soon as we left the van, we noticed a gull hanging out that had a black back. That meant it could either be a Great or a Lesser Black-Backed Gull. The Great is more common, but Lessers are regularly found on Lake Erie. I put a scope on it and noticed that it had nice yellow legs, the telltale sign of a Lesser Black-Backed Gull. That made it a very exciting lifer. The Lesser Black-Backed Gull is actually a species from Eurasia which overwinters in Africa, which is pretty far from Ohio. Over the past century, the Lesser Black-Backed Gull has been slowly moving westward. They began breeding in Iceland in the early 1900's, and then in Greenland in 1990. 1934 brought the first record of one in the United States. 1977 brought the first record of one in Ohio. Since then, more and more have been found overwintering along Lake Erie. Today they are regular in Ohio, just in small numbers. There's a good chance that they might begin nesting in Canada in the near future too (but I've also heard conjectures of a possible undiscovered breeding colony already in existence).

As we walked farther out, we met two birders who told us we had just missed an unidentified jaeger that flew by. Jaegars are an ocean-going type of bird that occasionally show up on the Great Lakes. There are three species which can show up on Lake Erie, and identification can be difficult. It doesn't help that most of the ones that show up are juveniles, which tend to look even more similar to each other. We scanned the lake for awhile, but sadly the jaegar didn't reappear. 

After the Huron Pier, we packed the vans and headed off to East Harbor State Park. East Harbor State Park lies on a small peninsula between Lake Erie and the Sandusky Bay. It consists of marshes, protected coves, open lake, a barrier beach, and a little bit of young woods. We came to scan the protected water behind the barrier beach, as well as the beach itself. The protected cove held a few rafts of ducks, mainly Mallards and Gadwalls. The beach, however, was filled with gulls. The highlight was a Great Black-Backed Gull. It was a monster. In fact, this is the largest gull species alive. The individual we saw stuck out like a sore thumb; it towered over every other gull, and its black back was hard to miss. Here's the complete list of birds for this location: East Harbor SP, Nov. 8

East Harbor was the last location we went to for the day, and we headed back to Old Woman Creek to prepare for another night of owl banding. As soon as the sun set, we opened the nets and waited. And waited. And waited some more.

And then the waiting paid off. We caught a Northern Saw-Whet Owl! These truly magnificent owls are very tiny, and very cute. The Northern Saw-Whet Owl is one of the smallest owls in North America, being similar in size to an American Robin. They feed primarily on mice, but they also have to watch out for themselves; Barred, Great Horned, and various other larger owl species will actually catch and feed on saw-whets. Since they face the threat of predation, these owls have become masters at hiding. They like to roost in very dense conifer stands and can be nearly impossible to find. If you've spent time in a patch of forest with a lot of scruffy pines or grapevines in late fall and through winter, chances are you've probably passed one of these tiny owls without even knowing.

Old Woman Creek Education Coordinator Jennifer Bucheit with the Northern Saw-Whet Owl and her personal banding number. This photo gives you a better idea of just how small these owls are.

Since these owls are so hard to find, the details of their range have been mysterious for quite some time. They breed primarily in the coniferous forests of Canada along with higher elevation mixed or coniferous forests of the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. Their breeding range was easily worked out as the males will sing a very loud and incessant call during their breeding season. Outside of the breeding season, these owls are essentially silent. Couple that with their diminutive size and concealment skills and you have a species that is very hard to detect during winter. This made for the mistaken assumption that they didn't migrate much and were quite rare in certain parts of their range. Then some bird banders began to change that idea. Starting in the 1960's, a few people tried mist netting at night for these owls. They were successful and showed that this was a possible feat. More and more banding stations began to try and replicate this. In 1994, Project Owlnet was created in order to start a network between saw-whet banding stations across the nation and to facilitate the creation of more stations. By having a wide range of stations at different locations around the US and Canada, the banders hoped to gain an accurate idea of saw-whet migration. Due to the efforts of these banding stations, we now know that saw-whets do indeed migrate, and they migrate in large numbers. We also know that they are much, much more common than previously thought. Hundreds, if not thousands, of these owls move through Ohio every year, typically October through November. Dr. Kelly Williams, my professor for the class, was responsible for demonstrating that saw-whets migrated through Ohio, an idea that was previously disregarded by most. The occasional individual had been found in Ohio now and again before her work, but those could have easily just been a "lost" bird. Then, back in the early 2000's, Dr. Williams began a banding station in Ross County, and quickly caught saw-whets. And just like that, she proved that they do indeed migrate through Ohio, and in great numbers. 

So what happens when you capture one of these wild owls? Do they try to constantly bite or claw you while trying to escape? Surprisingly, not really; in fact, they kind of just sit there relaxed while staring at you. Even more surprisingly, they enjoy being pet. And I mean they really, really like it. If you stroke the back of one's head, they will close their eyes and lean into your hand; they basically act like a flying owl-cat, and it's one of the most adorable things to witness. You can see the pure joy and content on our owl's face as Dr. Williams pets her.

And on that note, the end is finally here! Thanks for reading!

Ornithology Lab, October 21

This is the sixth installment in a series of weekly posts for my ornithology class at Ohio University. We go out in the field every Wednesday (weather permitting) to do some birding and/or bird banding. One of our assignments is to write a blog post about each of these field trips, which is what this series will be about.

First Post: September 2
Second Post: September 9
Third Post: September 16
Fourth Post: September 30 
Fifth Post: October 7

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The morning chill has set upon Southeastern Ohio. Wednesday morning's lab was a brisk 34 degrees Fahrenheit. It didn't help that we were out before sunrise either; we arrived at The Ridges in Athens, Ohio, at 7:00 AM. The sunrise was at 7:44 AM. We used this twilight time to set up the banding nets at our usual locations.

This lab was filled with birds, especially when it came to banding. We banded a total of 20 birds (the most yet) over the course of 3 and a half hours. Eleven of the 20 were species of permanent residency in Ohio. The other 9 were all Chipping Sparrows, a migratory species in Ohio. While the warblers, vireos, tanagers, and others are all but gone, a few species are still migrating through. Many of these are various sparrow species, like the Chipping Sparrow. This must have been a big movement day for the Chipping Sparrow, as we just kept netting individual after individual.

As I previously said, the other 11 birds were all non-migratory (or permanent) species for Ohio. As many of you probably already know, not all birds migrate. In Ohio, birds can essentially be split up into 4 different groups when it comes to residency status. First off, you have the permanent residents. These species, such as the Northern Cardinal, live in Ohio year-round. Second, you have the transient species. These are the species which only move through Ohio during spring and fall migrations. These species, such as the Blackpoll Warbler, normally breed farther north in Canada and overwinter down in Central or South America. As a result, they can only be found in Ohio for a few select weeks out of the year. Third, you have the summer breeders. These are species, such as the Red-Eyed Vireo, which migrate into Ohio during spring migration, breed during the summer, and then migrate back south during fall migration. These species are not found here during the winter months. The fourth group is the overwintering birds. These are species that migrate from up north (typically late in Fall migration), spend the winter here in Ohio, and then migrate back north early on in spring migration. This group includes birds such as the American Tree Sparrow, White-Throated Sparrow, and White-Crowned Sparrow.

As always, there are exceptions. For example, Dark-Eyed Juncos are considered an overwintering species in Ohio; however, there are a few individuals in extreme northern Ohio which actually stay all year round and breed in the Summer. Now, it's kind of deceiving to call the junco a permanent resident when there's only a few individuals that do this, and thousands upon thousands of other individuals which only come here to overwinter. Another species in a similar situation is the Hermit Thrush. Generally speaking, the Hermit Thrush does not breed in Ohio. They can be found mostly during Spring and Fall migrations. However, there are a few locations in Ohio, such as the Hocking Hills and Mohican State Forest, where the Hermit Thrush breeds. And often there are several dozen pairs at these locations, making them locally common. Then, in the extreme southern half of Ohio, you can often find overwintering individuals. There are many other species which don't fall neatly into one of the four residency categories, but these categories are useful as a baseline understanding. The more you learn about nature, the more often you will run into exceptions like these.

Anyway, Chipping Sparrows are a migratory species. More specifically, the Chipping Sparrow is a summer breeder. They migrate here during the spring, breed over the summer, and then migrate back south over a long period of time during fall migration. Like I said, we ended up banding 9 Chipping Sparrows over the course of the morning. These individuals probably belong to the last wave or so coming through Ohio.

The rest of the birds we banded that day included Carolina Chickadees (including 2 of our own recaptures from earlier in the semester), Tufted Titmice (including 2 of our own recaptures), Song Sparrows, and a female Red-Bellied Woodpecker.

Here's the complete checklist of birds observed during the morning:

1. Canada goose
2. Turkey Vulture
3. Red-Bellied Woodpecker
4. Downy Woodpecker
5. Pileated Woodpecker
6. Blue Jay
7. American Crow
8. Carolina Chickadee
9. Tufted Titmouse
10. White-Breasted Nuthatch
11. Carolina Wren
12. Eastern Bluebird
13. American Robin
14. Cedar Waxwing
15. Chipping Sparrow
16. White-Throated Sparrow
17. Eastern Towhee
18. Northern Cardinal
19. House Finch
20 American Goldfinch

Ornithology Lab, October 7

This is the fifth installment in a series of weekly posts for my ornithology class at Ohio University. We go out in the field every Wednesday (weather permitting) to do some birding and/or bird banding. One of our assignments is to write a blog post about each of these field trips, which is what this series will be about.

First Post: September 2
Second Post: September 9
Third Post: September 16
Fourth Post: September 30 

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As the goldenrod and asters fade, and the leaves begin to change to more colorful hues, so comes Autumn; and with Autumn comes a whole new array of birds to Ohio. Most of the summer neotropical breeders have left, and now many Canadian birds are moving southward for the Winter months. Dark-Eyed Juncos, Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers, Golden-Crowned Kinglets, and all of those typical Winter birds are making appearances all around Ohio, and now the birders know it is indeed Autumn.

For this week's lab trip, we went once more to Lake Hope State Park in Vinton County, Ohio. Overall it was a pretty quiet day, so this post won't be that lengthy. Here are the highlights:

Arriving at 7:30 AM, we first stopped at the dam overlooking the lake. Two Belted Kingfishers patrolled the waters, a Great Blue Heron stood like a sentinel on the beach, and a few Canada Geese swam around. It was a normal day on the lake. The previous night must have been a huge movement day for Eastern Phoebes, as they were literally everywhere. It seemed like every other tree had at least one Eastern Phoebe in it, and they were by far the most numerous migrant of the day.

Next, we moved on to a small wetland that had been created when some beavers dammed up a small creek. Upon stepping out of the vans, over 20 startled Wood Ducks took flight and escaped the group of birders. Once again, there were more Belted Kingfishers and more Eastern Phoebes. We decided to walk a short distance along a trail that led us through some thick shrubs and young trees. As it is in the midst of sparrow migration, we were hoping for some interesting sparrows, but we only had a Song Sparrow. Elsewhere in the area were Indigo Buntings, a very cooperative Yellow-Billed Cuckoo, Golden-Crowned Kinglets, and the usual Carolina Chickadees and Eastern Towhees. 

Moving on to a very large marsh/lake down the road from the park, we hoped to find some more ducks. Once again, there were only Wood Ducks. Another Belted Kingfisher sat atop a snag. That was about it for birds at the marshy lake complex. By far the highlight of that specific area were some tiny yellow flowers in the water near the bank. Upon closer inspection I was surprised to find out it was a bladderwort species of some sort! Bladderworts are a species of carnivorous plant which trap small aquatic creatures, like protozoans and rotifers, in tiny traps that dot their free-floating root systems. After some research later on, I discovered that the bladderworts we saw were Humped Bladderworts, Utricularia gibba. This is a species which I've seen before at Calamus Swamp in Pickaway County. You can read about it, and other plant species, on my Calamus Swamp plant post.

Piling back into the vans, we turned around and headed back to the park. We ventured up a ridge to the Nature Center and campground section. This is a wonderful area to see Red-Headed Woodpeckers, which was why we checked the area out. It was quiet at first, but soon the forest came alive with dozens of Eastern Bluebirds, like the one pictured above. We noticed one area where two or three bluebirds were foraging on the ground. Soon, Pine Warblers joined them. Then Chipping Sparrows joined in. Walking onward, we scared up a group of Dark-Eyed Juncos, my FOS (first of season) for the year. Only a little bit later we found my FOS Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker. Then, to much excitement, a Red-Headed Woodpecker flew in. The Red-Headed Woodpecker is an absolutely stunning woodpecker, but sadly it is becoming harder and harder to find. It's always a treat to see it when I do.

It was then that I noticed we had seen every single species of normally-occurring woodpecker in Ohio. Throughout the morning we had a Downy, Hairy, Pileated, and Red-Bellied Woodpecker. We also had a Northern Flicker and Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker in addition to the Red-Headed Woodpecker. These seven species make up the regularly-occurring group of woodpeckers in Ohio, and I've never had a "complete" woodpecker day before! It was a wonderful way to end the morning.

Here's the complete list of birds I observed that day:

1. Canada Goose

2. Wood Duck

3. Great Blue Heron

4. Turkey Vulture

5. Yellow-Billed Cuckoo

6. Belted Kingfisher

7. Red-Headed Woodpecker

8. Red-Bellied Woodpecker

9. Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

10. Downy Woodpecker

11. Hairy Woodpecker

12. Northern Flicker

13. Pileated Woodpecker

14. Eastern Phoebe

15. Blue Jay 

16. American Crow

17. Carolina Chickadee
18. White-Breasted Nuthatch
19. Carolina Wren

20. Golden-Crowned Kinglet

21. Eastern Bluebird

22. American Robin

23. Pine Warbler

24. Black-Throated Green Warbler

25. Chipping Sparrow

26. Dark-Eyed Junco

27. Song Sparrow

28. Eastern Towhee

29. Indigo Bunting

30. American Goldfinch

South Carolina, Pt. 1

As you might know, I am currently taking Ornithology (the study of birds) at Ohio University. This is one of the required classes for my Wildlife and Conservation Biology major, and also one of my most-anticipated classes of my college career. We go on weekly field labs (You can read about each one at this link), but we also get to go on two big trips. One of these trips is to Lake Erie, which is coming up in November, but the other trip was last week. As you might guess by the title, it was a trip down to South Carolina. The point of this trip was to expose us to birds we would normally never see in Ohio, and so we were doing some relatively intense birding to find all those special species. If you've ever went birding to that degree, you probably know that taking photos is pretty difficult, as you simply don't have the time for it. So sadly I don't have a bunch of photos, but I'll try to make do with the ones I did take.

We left Athens, Ohio, at 8 AM on Thursday, September 24th. Eleven hours and a slight detour later, we arrived at our destination, Hunting Island State Park. Hunting Island State Park is located in extreme southern South Carolina. The entire park is located on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. This island is one of the few remaining undeveloped barrier islands located within the so-named Sea Islands, which is a chain of tidal and barrier islands ranging from mid-South Carolina to extreme northern Florida. Hunting Island has a subtropical climate and consists of several different ecosystems. On the Eastern side of the island is the Atlantic Ocean, shown above. The Western side consists of extensive salt marsh habitat. The island itself consists mainly of maritime forest. In this part of the world, maritime forests are dominated by evergreen trees, with the majority of those trees being pine trees. In this case Loblolly Pine was the dominant tree, with Slash Pine, Southern Live Oak, and other trees mixed in. The iconic Cabbage Palm occupied the mid-story, which you can see in the photo above. Those tall pines pictured are the Loblolly Pine. The understory was occupied primarily by Saw Palmetto, Serenoa repens. An interesting and well-recognized species of fern-like palm, Saw Palmetto is restricted to the Southern Atlantic Coast and Eastern Gulf Coast. It can be found in only one county in South Carolina (Beaufort), which is where Hunting Island is located. There are other similar-looking palm species found in the understory here though as well, such as Needle Palm.

We arrived near sunset, ate in the city of Beaufort, and then headed toward the park in the dark. It had began to rain by the time we arrived, which added a whole new dimension of fun as we frantically tried setting up our tents before they got too wet inside. That rain turned into a storm with incredible lightning, Earth-shaking thunder, and torrential rain. It turns out that storm system also spawned an EF-2 tornado in Johns Island, which was only a mere 35 miles away from us. Thankfully we just received heavy downpours; a tornado might have put a slight damper on the trip, to say the least.

When morning came, the rain had stopped but the skies were still pretty overcast. We ventured out to the beach to look for shorebirds and other related birds. Laughing Gulls, Brown Pelicans, and various terns quickly greeted us. A few shorebirds were out and about, including a Ruddy Turnstone, multiple Willets, and some peeps we couldn't identify. A lagoon on the other side of the dunes held a Bald Eagle, Osprey, Little Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, and Snowy Egrets. Many warbler species flitted about the trees, and Brown-Headed Nuthatches squeaked like a dog toy from the canopy.

After a few hours, we moved to the Western side of the island. This side of the island has an extensive salt marsh. A salt marsh is essentially the area between open salt water and dry land. This area gets routinely flooded with salt water every day due to the tides, which in turn creates a soggy and salty salt marsh. I took this photo during low tide, and you can see how the salt water is restricted to a shallow river (named Johnson Creek). Once the high tide comes in, the water level will rise (in the case of the day this was taken, it rose 7 feet), and most of the Smooth Cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora, that you see will be nearly covered.

The saltmarsh produced more herons, including our first Tricolored Heron of the day. Four Wood Storks, a federally-listed Endangered Species, flew over us, drawing ooh's from the class. Several Willets, a species of sandpiper, foraged along the exposed mud bank of Johnson Creek. For several minutes, a Clapper Rail ventured out into the open along the bank to forage next to a sleeping Laughing Gull. To our surprise, a dolphin also made an appearance. Due to the location, I'm nearly certain that it was a Common Bottlenose Dolphin, Tursiops truncatus. There are other species of dolphin near South Carolina, but most of these are more open-ocean species. The Common Bottlenose Dolphin is the only species which commonly swims to the shore, into lagoons and marshes, and up estuaries. It was amazing to see one so close!

We then went to Paradise Pier, a 1,120 foot pier that juts out into Fripp Inlet. Here we had 30+ Brown Pelicans, dozens of Laughing Gulls, 2 Herring Gulls, another Bald Eagle, more heron species, and the birds on the sandbar in the photo above. This sandbar, which was just off the pier, was a very productive piece of land. About 20 Sanderlings (a species of sandpiper) and 3 Willets foraged by the water's edge. A group of terns flew in a few minutes later. There were Caspian, Royal, and Sandwich Terns in the group. Then the most exciting species of the pier flew in: 3 Black Skimmers (the black birds on the center-left). We also got to see two cool fish species. One fisherman pulled up a large Red Drum, Sciaenops ocellatus, which was probably around 2 and a half feet long. Another caught one of the Dasyatis stingray species, which was incredible to see in the wild! I'm not sure of the exact species, but it was either the Atlantic, Bluntnose, or Roughtail Stingray.

One of the best parts of this trip was seeing so many new things that I've wanted to see for years. I haven't been near the ocean since I was 4, and so I was looking at everything around me with new eyes. Every other bird I looked at was essentially a lifer. Every plant I looked at was a species I had never seen before. Plants I had learned about in class, like the Loblolly Pine, finally came to life in front of my eyes. I'm a bird guy first and foremost, so the birds were obviously the stars of the trip, but this spider was definitely one of the stand-out highlights. This is the Golden Silk Orbweaver (more commonly known as the Banana Spider), Nephila clavipes, a species of spider I have wanted to see for years and years. When you're into biology, you'll often find yourself doing things that the average person would not do. For example, I was walking to the bathrooms the first morning when I ran face first into a huge, very strong orbweaver web. The web was larger and stronger than any I had seen before. Now, the average person would have freaked out and tried to get away as fast as possible. The first thing that jumped to my mind though was "OH MY GOSH, CAN IT BE A BANANA SPIDER?!?" I looked up to my left to see the massive palm-sized spider frantically running away from me. It was! My lifer Banana Spider! I was ecstatic and quickly went to get an even closer look. This is an absolutely beautiful species. Although big and "frightening" looking to some, these are really harmless spiders that won't do anything unless you handle them roughly.

Fiddler crabs, Uca sp.

We ended the day a little before sundown. Our awesome TA Brandan Gray made everyone jambalaya, and we had a wonderful (and much-needed) dinner as the sun set through the pines at our campsite. A little bit later, the class decided to head off to the beach. Due to Loggerhead Turtles nesting on the beach, lights of any sort are banned for the Summer until the end of October, but there was a nearly full moon out which lit up the beach. It was nearing low tide, so a large portion of the beach was exposed. As we walked along the beach, Brandan yelled out "Dolphin!" and pointed to a blob swimming about 30 feet from shore. We looked out and I noticed the creature had a heterocercal tail. That meant one thing. I yelled out "THAT'S A SHARK!" and sure enough it was. It was the first time I ever saw a shark out in the wild, and I was beyond ecstatic. I have no idea what species it was, but it was about a 5 foot long individual who was slowly swimming parallel to the shore about 30 feet out. We followed it down the shore until it disappeared back into the ocean, marking the end of an amazing day.

Since it would be too long to list out all the species here, you can see my bird checklists for the day at the following links:

1. Hunting Island SP Forest, Lagoon, and Beach
2. Hunting Island Salt Marsh
3. Paradise Pier (Hunting Island SP)

I should have Part 2 up by tomorrow, so stay tuned! Part 2 can be found right here!

Ornithology Lab, September 30

This is the fourth installment in a series of weekly posts for my ornithology class at Ohio University. We go out in the field every Wednesday (weather permitting) to do some birding and/or bird banding. One of our assignments is to write a blog post about each of these field trips, which is what this series will be about.

First Post: September 2
Second Post: September 9
Third Post: September 16

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Fall has arrived, both in date and finally weather. Cool temperatures in the upper 50's met us as we traveled once again to The Ridges on the outskirt of Athens, Ohio. It truly felt, and looked, like Fall; leaves were changing, leaves were falling all around us, it was cool with a breeze, and the sky was overcast. The birds were also pretty active, as I'll get into in a second.

Photo courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The entire Midwest had some pretty impressive migration flights this week. The photo above is a snapshot of a weather radar at midnight on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Weather radars, when calibrated with certain parameters, actually show bird migration movements. This phenomenon has been used for years to help gauge and study migration patterns. When looking at the photo above, notice the multiple blue circles (some of which have green centers). These circles are masses of migrating birds. The darker the circles, the more numerous the birds. Let's look at Ohio specifically. Notice there's a cold front that's moving out of the state early in the night. There's not much movement before the front, but there's many large movements behind the front. As the front moved through Ohio, it brought northerly winds originating in Canada. On these northerly winds were thousands of migrating songbirds, and you can see the multiple dark blue/light green circles that represent them. As the front moved out of Ohio before sunrise, these songbirds settled out into the southeastern portions of Ohio, right where we were.

A Magnolia Warbler among the branches from Magee Marsh in May.

This time around, we did some bird banding on top of the normal birding. We set up nets in three areas (instead of the normal 6). We had one set of nets in a powerline cut with scruffy bushes and tall grasses that had deciduous forest on either side. We had another set of nets along a path that bordered deciduous forest on one side and thick grape-vine covered shrubbery on the other. The final net was set up in some young forest next to an open area. 

Photo courtesy of Dr. Kelly Williams.

Bird banding the past two times weren't that productive; however, this day was very productive. The most commonly caught species was the Carolina Chickadee, with 5 individuals banded for the day. The second most commonly banded species of the day was a relative of the Carolina Chickadee, the Tufted Titmouse, of which we banded 4. Going along with the more common, permanent residents theme, we also banded a Northern Cardinal and the Swamp Sparrow pictured above.

Now we'll get into the migratory species!

Photo courtesy of Dr. Kelly Williams.

We caught several warbler species over the course of the morning. The first was this Northern Parula pictured above. I've previously covered this species, and you can read all about it at this link! We then went on to net 3 Magnolia Warblers, all of which were hatch-year birds. The last warbler species we caught and banded was a beautiful hatch-year Black-Throated Green Warbler, my all time favorite warbler species. I was lucky enough to be able to release him!

Photo courtesy of Dr. Kelly Williams.

The star of the day, in my opinion, was this Blue-Headed Vireo, a bird I had never seen before. The Blue-Headed Vireo is a bird of mixed coniferous-and-deciduous forests which are found throughout Eastern Canada down through the Appalachian Mountains. The Blue-Headed Vireo is a common migrant species in Ohio, but is a very rare breeder. They require cooler locales with plenty of Eastern Hemlock trees. A few individuals can be found nesting here in Ohio in places such as Conkles Hollow State Nature Preserve, Clear Creek Metropark, and Mohican State Forest. And finally, the last species that we banded was a hatch-year Indigo Bunting.

Here's the complete list of birds for the day:

1. Black Vulture
2. Turkey Vulture
3. Rock Pigeon
4. Chimney Swift
5. Downy Woodpecker
6. Pileated Woodpecker
7. Eastern Wood-Pewee
8. Blue-Headed Vireo
9. American Crow
10. Carolina Chickadee
11. Tufted Titmouse
12. White-Breasted Nuthatch
13. Carolina Wren
14. American Robin
15. Gray Catbird
16. Cedar Waxwing
17. Common Yellowthroat
18. American Redstart
19. Northern Parula
20. Magnolia Warbler
21. Black-Throated Green Warbler
22. Swamp Sparrow
23. Eastern Towhee
24. Northern Cardinal
25. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak
26. Indigo Bunting
27. American Goldfinch

Last weekend my class went down to South Carolina to do some birding. I'll be having a post on that coming up extremely soon, so stay tuned!

Ornithology Lab, September 16

This is the third installment in a series of weekly posts for my ornithology class at Ohio University. We go out in the field every Wednesday (weather permitting) to do some birding and/or bird banding. One of our assignments is to write a blog post about each of these field trips, which is what this series will be about.

First Post: September 2
Second Post: September 9

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Lake Hope State Park

Beginning late last week, Southern Ohio has been experiencing more Fall-like weather (finally!), with cool mornings in the high 40's to low 50's before climbing up into the 60's and 70's. The morning of Wednesday, Sept. 16, was no different. We left Athens at 7:00 AM, just as the sun was climbing above the horizon and the thermometer was climbing out of the high 40's. Our two vans went off down State Route 56 toward one of my favorite areas in Vinton County. About twenty minutes later we arrived at our first stop of the day, a section of Zaleski State Forest. We were on top of Irish Ridge, a long ridge that's 1000 feet above sea level. The class set off along a trail that led us along a finger of the ridge. 

Now, state forests in Ohio are subject to selective logging. The specific part of Irish Ridge we were walking along was one such area. It had been selectively logged only a few years ago; a few trees of "normal" height dotted the area, but the majority of the vegetation was dense shrubs and young sapling trees. With great cover and ample food, this place turned out to be a bird paradise. The winds had also helped, and I'll show why.

Map courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

This weekend had brought one of the first big Fall migration movements to Ohio. Southerly winds, as I discussed in last week's post, had been keeping many migrants out of Ohio. Those dominant southerly winds changed to northerly winds over the weekend as a cold front moved through. As most birders know, cold fronts equal really good birding (generally). This is due to a multitude of reasons depending on what type of cold front and where it came from, but in this case the cold front brought northerly winds. Trailing behind the cold front on these northerly winds were thousands of migratory songbirds. These birds then began pouring into Ohio.

Map courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Then something really interesting happened. By late Tuesday night, the winds in Ohio changed from favorable northerly winds to unfavorable southerly winds, as the map above shows. As I mentioned last week, most songbirds migrate during the night. Most of the thousands of individuals that had been migrating into Ohio over the weekend into Monday night were suddenly confronted with winds heading in the opposite direction they were trying to go. Instead of wasting tons of energy trying to fly against a headwind, the majority of these birds just stayed put over Tuesday evening. When we arrived on Irish Ridge Wednesday morning, all these migrants were still there, and they were very actively foraging to take advantage of the unfavorable weather. The goal this morning for your average migrant was to find as much food as possible, replenish the fat reserves they had just spent coming to Vinton County the previous night, and wait until the winds changed. 

This made for one of the most spectacular displays of migration I had ever seen in Southeast Ohio. Often during a good migration day, warblers are pretty easy to find. Today, they were everywhere one looked. These migratory birds easily outnumbered the permanent birds of Ohio, and it was wonderful.

A female American Redstart. This was one of the warbler species we saw on the trip. This photo was taken at Magee Marsh during May, 2015.

Let me give you a quick snapshot of a moment from Irish Ridge this morning. A nomadic flock of Cedar Waxwings cried in their high pitch calls overhead in one of the remaining older trees. Several White-Eyed Vireos sung "Peanut butter and jelly, CHECK!" on either side of our group. Eastern Towhees "towHEE'd" from the dense vegetation. A Prairie Warbler sung his buzzy song from the side of the hill. Eastern Wood-Pewees lived up to their flycatching name. A female Scarlet Tanager foraged quietly in one tree while a male sang loudly in another. Two juvenile Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks chased each other from tree to tree. A Tennessee Warbler lazily sung as it moved throughout the canopy of a tree. A group of Magnolia Warblers flew from bush to bush looking for insects. A young American Redstart flitted about a clump of leaves. Songs were sung while call notes rang from every bush and tree. I could go on and on and on. It was a sensory overload.

And then something else happened. Someone yelled "Hawk!" It only flew through the area for a split second, not even enough time for anyone else to see it. An Accipiter the person said, probably a Cooper's Hawk, a bird-eating hawk. And with that, silence. 

The entire area went from a sensory overload to being depraved of any noise or movement. There was literally not a single bird that anyone could see or hear. We had entered what Jon Young calls the Zone of Silence. Some of you might recognize the name; Jon Young is the author of the absolutely amazing book What the Robin Knows, a very well-known book that teaches the observant naturalist how to interpret bird vocalizations and behavior in order to gain an understanding of what is currently happening in that immediate area. This is a wonderful book that I highly recommend to anyone interested in birds; it will take your nature-knowledge and skills to a whole new level. 

Back to the hawk. As I said before, we were standing in the Zone of Silence. What exactly is that? Well, it's a type of response to a hawk. Accipiters are a genus of hawks (such as the Cooper's and Sharp-Shinned) that feed primarily on birds, and as a result are very dangerous to a small songbird. Songbirds are constantly watching for these hawks, and when one is sighted a fast chain of reactions are set in motion. Let's say a Carolina Chickadee on watch duty sees a Cooper's Hawk flying into the area, but it's still a somewhat decent way off. That chickadee will sound an alarm call that specifically designates an Accipiter hawk (yes, chickadees have specific alarms for specific threats). All the birds in the immediate area will hear that alarm call, and then those birds themselves will sound their own alarm call. Imagine this Zone of Alarm is like a giant bubble around the hawk. These birds can afford to sound the alarm because even though they are within danger, they are still away from immediate danger. Now imagine there's a smaller bubble that nestled within the large Zone of Alarm. This smaller bubble is the Zone of Silence. When a songbird is within this bubble, it is in immediate danger of being killed by the hawk; as a result, any bird in the Zone of Silence will attempt to hide, be as still as possible, and make no noise. It basically wants to disappear so the hawk won't notice it. 

If you've been in nature a lot, you know that the forest isn't really "silent" like people say. It's a noisy place. When it is silent, you know that something is up. It's disruptions, like true silence, from the baseline activity (as Jon Young calls it) that should always grab your attention. And trust me, if you're paying attention when birding, you will notice if everything that was just around you goes dead silent and disappears. It is important to note that this won't happen every time; sometimes the hawk will enter too quickly or too silently giving the birds no chance to react.

Of course, not all hawks elicit this response. The hawks of Ohio can essentially be broken into two main groups. I've already mentioned one, the genus Accipiter. The other group is a genus named Buteo. The Accipiters are "birds hawks," while the Buteos are "mammal hawks." As you might guess, a bird-eating Accipiter poses a huge threat to a bird, but a Buteo will generally avoid eating birds. As a result, a Buteo will still elicit an alarm, but a different type of alarm. Jumping ahead in the trip a bit, I want to talk about an encounter we had with a Red-Tailed Hawk. The Red-Tailed Hawk is the most common Buteo in Ohio. They, like other Buteos, eat mainly mice, voles, shrews, etc., and avoid birds. Songbirds still don't like Red-Tails, but they know that one doesn't mean an immediate threat. We saw one juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk at Lake Hope. We weren't the only ones to notice him though; several chickadees, a Magnolia Warbler, and a few other birds had found him and were actively mobbing him. They wanted to let the Red-Tail know that he wasn't welcomed there, and the songbirds didn't stop attacking him until he flew away. In this case, the Red-Tailed Hawk didn't cause a Zone of Silence, but simply caused different species to come together to get rid of him.

An Osprey from Old Woman Creek earlier in the Spring. I captured this photo while the Osprey flew over the beach at OWC.

After Irish Ridge, we moved down to Lake Hope State Park, which was right next door. We moved through a scruffy marsh region that transitioned into deciduous forest which bordered the lake proper. This was where we found the juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk I just mentioned, but we also had two other birds of prey. We accidentally flushed an Osprey, a raptor that specializes in eating fish. Later on we heard a Red-Shouldered Hawk calling from the forest. It was a good raptor morning!

Here's the total list (with both locations combined) of species for the morning:

1. Wood Duck
2. Turkey Vulture
3. Osprey
4. Red-Shouldered Hawk*
5. Red-Tailed Hawk
6. Mourning Dove
7. Eastern Screech-Owl*
8. Chimney Swift
9. Belted Kingfisher
10. Red-Bellied Woodpecker
11. Downy Woodpecker*
12. Pileated Woodpecker
13. Eastern Wood-Pewee
14. Eastern Phoebe
15. White-Eyed Vireo
16. Yellow-Throated Vireo*
17. Blue Jay
18. American Crow
19. Carolina Chickadee
20. Tufted Titmouse
21. White-Breasted Nuthatch*
22. Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher*
23. Gray Catbird
24. Cedar Waxwing
25. Tennessee Warbler*
26. Hooded Warbler
27. American Redstart
28. Magnolia Warbler
29. Bay-Breasted Warbler
30. Chestnut-Sided Warbler
31. Pine Warbler
32. Prairie Warbler*
33. Eastern Towhee
34. Scarlet Tanager
35. Northern Cardinal
36. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak
37. Indigo Bunting
38. American Goldfinch*

(Note, * denotes "Heard Only")

Overall it was a great morning, with 38 species I personally observed, including 8 species of warblers! This Thursday I head to South Carolina with the class for an extended 4-day field trip, so stay tuned for a post about that!

Ornithology Lab, September 9

This is the second installment in a series of weekly posts for my ornithology class at Ohio University. We go out in the field every Wednesday (weather permitting) to do some birding and bird banding. One of our assignments is to write a blog post about each of these field trips, which is what this series will be about.

First Post: September 2

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An Eastern Wood-Pewee, one of the migrant species that was still singing at The Ridges. This photo was taken at Old Woman Creek in Erie County this past May.

It was another early morning at 6:45 AM. This week we were at The Ridges, Athens County, once more. It was yet another warm morning, with temperatures in the high 60's (which quickly climbed into the 70's) and near 100% humidity (dew points between 68 and 70 degrees). Haze filled the otherwise cloudless sky, and some patchy fog hung about in open areas. Put shortly, it was a muggy and still morning. I've been eagerly awaiting for it to feel like Fall, but it appears I'll have to wait a bit.

Sadly, it was yet another bad day for Fall migration; southerly winds for the past couple days have held down what migrants we've had in the region and prevented more waves from coming through. For you birders out there who want to know if a day has the potential to be good or not, a great tool to utilize is Cornell University's BirdCast. During Spring and Fall migrations, they give weekly outlooks, including regional outlooks, on what days seem to be good for birding, and what species will most likely be on the move. For an example, you can check out this week's outlook here.

I mentioned southerly winds holding migrants back, and I'll explain that concept a bit more, using BirdCast to help. The majority of songbirds (Warblers, Sparrows, Vireos, etc.) migrate during the night, which might surprise many of you (I know it surprised me when I learned!). Essentially, the birds take off at dusk, fly all night, and drop into a patch of good habitat in the morning. During the day they try to stuff themselves with food and rest, preparing for another full night of flying. During Fall migration, many songbirds are coming from their breeding grounds in Canada and the northern US and are trying to get to Central and South America to spend their winter. As a result, it is a huge energy-saving advantage if the wind is helping push you along. For this, the birds need northerly winds (winds coming from the north and blowing toward the south). If faced with southerly winds, many songbirds will simply stay put because it isn't worth the energy expenditure to try and fly against the wind. So to have a "good" migration day, you want to look for a morning where there were northerly winds overnight in your area/state. Northerly winds overnight should mean there are hundreds of hungry, tired migrants in the forests around you. 

Map courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Now is where BirdCast comes in to help. Pictured above is a map of the wind directions predicted for Wednesday morning at 2:00 AM (last night). This is in the middle of the night, which is exactly when songbirds are migrating. If we look at Ohio, we can see that the entire state is covered by southerly winds. That means that the migrants north of us will mostly be staying in the north. These conditions make for a "bad" day for birders and bird banding.

Regardless that it was a bad migration day overall, we ended up observing and mist netting more species than last week, which was a hotter and overall more miserable day. This time we set up nets in 7 areas. I made a quick breakdown of the area, which you can see above. The short white lines represent the nets. As you can see, we set up the nets in a variety of habitats. This ensures that we get a wider range of possible species, as different species exploit different habitats. We had 2 nets set up in dense shrub habitat, 4 nets set up in young scrubby forest, and 1 net set up by a pond. Due to area and time constraints, we can't set up any nets in the deciduous forests with more open undergrowth. It's also important to note that most bird species, while having a preferred habitat, will cross through different habitats to find better food sources, especially in migration. For example, we had a foraging flock of Carolina Chickadees that came from the open deciduous forest in the top right corner of the photo, which moved down across the scrub forest directly below, and then moved over into the edges of the lawn area. By covering more ground, the chickadees have a better chance of finding a good food source. Also, since breeding season is over, the chickadees don't have to worry about territories for the time being. The chickadees formed this foraging flock in order to maximize their chance of finding food (more eyes means more ground covered in less time) and to maximize their chance of seeing any potential threats before it's too late (such as seeing a Cooper's Hawk fly in).

The first bird we netted was a young male Northern Cardinal. It was in the same area as the adult female that we netted last week. Later we caught another female in the same area (who didn't have a band, so it was different from the female last week). I've also seen a male individual in the area. Northern Cardinals will form foraging flocks in the winter, and it seems like we have the start of one forming. It will be interesting to see if we eventually get recaptures every time we go out.

The second bird we netted was a female Common Yellowthroat, a species of warbler. This was our second warbler species we've banded so far in the Fall, and hopefully there are many more to come.

The third bird that flew into the mist nets was another Northern Cardinal. This individual was a juvenile, as the black beak told. Cardinals will have orange beaks when they reach adulthood.

An adult male (left) and adult female (right) Northern Cardinal. Notice the orange beak on the female; although immature males have plumage like a female, their beaks are black/brown. Both photos were taken in Pickaway County this past Winter.

In keeping with the cardinal theme, the fourth bird was an adult female Northern Cardinal. This was the individual I mentioned along with the first cardinal from today.

The last 3 birds we had were all caught in one net, and all during the same period. We had set up a net on a pathway between two areas of vine-covered shrubs with a a few trees scattered about. This is perfect White-Eyed Vireo habitat, and we were lucky enough to catch not only one, but three individuals in one go.

An adult White-Eyed Vireo. This was taken along the Nature Walk trail at The Ridges during Spring Migration.

One of the White-Eyed Vireos was noteworthy - he had already been banded, and not by us. All 3 individuals were "Hatch Year" individuals. This simply means they were all born this past Summer. So the one that was banded had not only been born within 4 months or so ago, but had also been netted and banded during that time. We then recaptured it while it was migrating south. One of the cool things about bird banding is learning about recaptures; if you can read the code on its ankle band (by either photo or having the bird in hand), then you can look that code up in the bird banding database to learn where that individual had been previously caught, who banded it, and other assorted information. Sadly we haven't been able to look up the code for that one yet, so I can't say where it had been previously banded.

Here is my personal list for the day, which includes all the birds I saw/heard from 7:00 AM to 11:30 AM:

1. Turkey Vulture
2. Rock Pigeon
3. Mourning Dove
4. Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
5. Red-Bellied Woodpecker
6. Hairy Woodpecker
7. Pileated Woodpecker*
8. Eastern Wood-Pewee*
9. White-Eyed Vireo
10. Yellow-Throated Vireo*
11. Red-Eyed Vireo
12. Blue Jay
13. American Crow
14. Carolina Chickadee
15. Tufted Titmouse*
16. White-Breasted Nuthatch
17. Carolina Wren*
18. American Robin
19. Cedar Waxwing
20. Common Yellowthroat
21. Magnolia Warbler
22. Wilson's Warbler (New for my Athens County list)
23. Eastern Towhee
24. Northern Cardinal
25. American Goldfinch

Note: * means "Heard Only"

A Tufted Titmouse, one of the species we heard today. This adorable individual is from Pickaway County.

Overall, this was a pretty good day. We had a decent number of birds banded, and I got to see my first Athens County Wilson's Warbler. There have been a few peculiarities so far though. We haven't heard or seen a Gray Catbird yet, and there's plenty of perfect habitat for them where we band. eBird doesn't have sightings dropping off in Ohio until late October, so I'm surprised we haven't seen any in such a good habitat. We have also been missing Eastern Bluebirds, a relatively easy-to-find bird at The Ridges. Song Sparrows have also been missing so far. Of course, it is only our second week out at the same location, so we might have just missed any in the area, but I'm still surprised we've went 9 hours of birding total without seeing any of those species in an area where I've seen them previously. I'll just have to keep my eye out even more.

Thanks for reading!

Ornithology Lab, September 2

Hey everyone! This is the first installment in a series of weekly posts for my Ornithology Class at Ohio University. We go out in the field every Wednesday (weather permitting) to do some birding and bird banding. One of our assignments is to write a blog post about each of these field trips, which is what this series will be about. A note to my regular readers: these posts will most likely be very different from my usual posts. I try to have a photo for every individual thing I talk about, but I won't be able to bring my camera on these field trips. As a result, these posts will be more like a journal than anything. I'll try to post any relevant photos I have from my library, but no guarantees! I'm hoping to intersperse "normal" posts with these posts as well. This series will run until early December. Alright, back information aside, let's get started!

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The morning started early. I would say bright and early, but it's quite dark outside at 5:30 AM. I got ready, grabbed my field guide, binoculars, field notebook, and a pen, and left my dorm room at 6:30 AM. We packed up the banding equipment and drove up to The Ridges, arriving at about 7:10 AM. The Ridges lies on the edge of the city of Athens in Athens County. It's an interesting place, and I honestly spend way more time there than I probably should. Most people know it as the site of the old Athens Lunatic Asylum, but it's much more than that. The land is now owned by Ohio University, and behind the old asylum building is dozens and dozens of acres of land with a smorgasbord of different habitats. Miles of trails, utilized by the students of Ohio University and the "townies" of Athens, crisscross the landscape, cutting through mature deciduous forest, grassland, abandoned orchards, shrubby overgrowth, young forest, and more. I've previously given a quick of The Ridges, which you can read here. 

The view of Radar Hill, one of the main attractions at The Ridges. Field Sparrows nest all throughout the grassy areas you see, while more "deep forest" birds like Pileated Woodpeckers call the forests you can partially see on the sides of the photo home.

As you might expect from a place with a variety of habitats, it's a good place for birds. I mean, it's a really good place for birds. I would definitely say it's one of the best places in Athens County to go birding. To give you an idea, 224 species have been recorded in Athens County on eBird. Of those 224 species, 155 of them have been seen one time or another at The Ridges. That's about 70%. I personally have a list of around 90 species here at The Ridges, including 21 species of warblers. 

The first bird we heard this morning was a White-Eyed Vireo. This is a common species along the beginning of the Nature Trail by the Challenge Course. The White-Eyed Vireo pictured here is from April 2015 along the Nature Trail.

Now that you have some background information on the area, let's get into today. As I mentioned, we arrived at around 7:10 AM, so all of the sightings I'll mention here happened between then and when we left at 11:40 AM. The morning started off relatively warm at around 65 degrees. It was incredibly humid and only got worse throughout the morning. Light fog hung in some of the low lying areas, while a hazy sky with some cirrus clouds soared overhead. The fog and haze left between 9:30 and 10:00 AM. We were hoping for a lot of good Fall migrants, but this week was a bad week for migration. Southerly winds prevented large movements of many of the northern-breeding songbirds. 

One of the main goals of our class is to get better acquainted with bird banding, specifically with the use of mist nets. Essentially, a mist net is a thin, hard to see net that birds will fly into before getting stuck in a tiny pocket. Once caught, a bird can be removed from the net, inspected for various things such as age, sex, and weight, and then banded. When banded, a bird is given a unique number code that is printed on a tiny aluminum ring. This ring is attached to the leg of the bird. If recaptured at any other banding station, or by any other bander, the code can be looked up and they will have access to all of the previous information gathered on that specific bird. This helps ornithologists gain a better idea of the basic morphology of a species, migration routes used and timing of those routes, what species utilize certain habitats, and much more.

We set up mist nets at 5 different locations. These locations were in a power-line right-of-way with a deciduous forest on each side, by a small pond, by a shrubby area next to an area of semi-developed land, and in a young deciduous forest. Upon setting up these nets, you wait for 10-30 minutes (depends on the conditions of that day) away from the nets, and then make a round checking all the nets. You hope there's at least one bird at one of the nets, but sometimes you come up empty. On a good day and at a good location, some banding stations can get hundreds and hundreds of birds. This day was not a good day. We ended up banding 5 birds total. However, 2 of these birds were really "good" birds.

The first was a surprise. By the tiny pond we caught a waterthrush, a species of warbler. Now, the first thought by me and most others was "Oh, it's a Louisiana Waterthrush." This is by far the most commonly seen waterthrush around Athens, and the only one that breeds here. However, the yellowish wash on its flanks, streaks on the throat, and yellow supercillium (eyebrow stripe) actually meant this was the Northern Waterthrush. This was a lifer for me and a few of the other birders in the class (although I don't really "count" birds that have been caught with a net). A great start to the semester. 

The second bird that was netted was a female Northern Cardinal. This individual was caught along a slight slope in a scruffy secondary growth woods next some lawn, a normal type of habitat that you would expect a cardinal in. Right now in the year, nesting is essentially over. As a result, we have an influx of juvenile birds going through their awkward teenage years. A young male Northern Cardinal superficially looks like an adult female; however, there are a few differences. The most obvious is the bill color; adult females will have a bright orange bill, while young males will have a dull gray bill. Another feature, which you won't see unless you have the bird in hand, is a brood patch, which this female had. Essentially, a brood patch is an area of featherless skin on the stomach of a female. A female's skin is much more efficient at directly transmitting heat to her eggs than adding the feathers as a "middle man." 

The third bird we banded was a Chipping Sparrow that had hatched this past season. As a result, he had juvenile plumage and was missing that species' characteristic rufus crown.

The fourth bird was the second "good" bird of the day. In a young and scrubby deciduous forest patch by an ephemeral creek we caught a Swainson's Thrush, another migrant species. Looking similar to a Wood Thrush or a Hermit Thrush, the Swainson's Thrush is a bird of Canada. They only pass through Ohio during Spring and Fall migrations, typically in April/May and September/October, respectively. A reserved skulker of a bird, this is a species most people don't see unless they're looking for one. It was great to see one so upclose!

Hey, I actually have a picture for this species! This is a Carolina Chickadee from Pickaway County, Ohio.

Last, but not least, was a Carolina Chickadee. A very common species at The Ridges, we heard several this day but only netted one, a young juvenile. The Carolina Chickadees should be, if they haven't already, starting to form mixed foraging flocks for the winter months. These typically consist of species like the Tufted Titmouse, Brown Creeper, and others. If you hear a chickadee starting from September on through the winter, it's best to look around and see what other birds are in the area!

There were plenty of other birds that we saw and heard during our time this morning. Here's my personal list of birds that I saw or heard (also including the species banded) during the field time, in taxonomic order. Note, species with an * means "heard only."

1. Turkey Vulture

2. Red-Bellied Woodpecker

3. Pileated Woodpecker*

4. Eastern Wood-Pewee*

5. Yellow-Throated Vireo*

6. White-Eyed Vireo*

7. Red-Eyed Vireo

8. Blue Jay

9. American Crow

10. Carolina Chickadee

11. Tufted Titmouse

12. White-Breasted Nuthatch

13. Carolina Wren*

14. American Robin

15. Swainson's Thrush

16. Cedar Waxwing

17. Northern Waterthrush

18. Chipping Sparrow

19. Eastern Towhee

20. Northern Cardinal

21. American Goldfinch

Some of the other species that I did not personally see, but others in the class did include:

1.Yellow-Billed Cuckoo

2. Ruby-Throated Hummingbird

3. Northern Mockingbird 

A flock of Cedar Waxwings came through at one point over the pond along the Nature Trail. The Cedar Waxwing pictured was an individual from earlier in the year taken along the Radar Hill Trail at The Ridges.

Overall, it was a really good first week out. I'm hoping that next week will bring northerly winds, and more migrants with it. I'm eagerly awaiting the return of Golden-Crowned Kinglets, Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers, and White-Throated Sparrows as well, which should be around mid to late September.