Lake Hope Furnace

Last Saturday, we took our second class field trip to Lake Hope State Park, in Vinton County Ohio. We arrived on site at the Furnace, a pyrimidal structure looking very Mayan in the early morning sunlight. In reality it was once used to smelt iron ore mined in the hills of Southern Ohio. I jumped out of the van at 7:40 am, the air had a fall chill and the temperature was in the lower 60s. The birds must have felt it too, because it was mostly quiet for the first twenty minutes or so. I think they were just waiting for it to warm up a bit.

The first thing I heard was some American crows followed by some Eastern Blue Jays. Then I got the treat of hearing a cranky sounding Red Shouldered Hawk, which has a call reminiscent of a Red Tail in puberty. While the rest of the class hung around the swampy lowland, I felt compelled to climb the hill and try to glimpse the hawk in roost. It called repeatedly, and I was able to track it in a large sycamore tree flapping its wings and warming up for a morning soar.

Red Shouldered Hawk

I went back to join the rest of the class, and by this time the sun had peeked out from behind the hill and the birds were out in full force. At first we heard more than we saw as we followed Miles into the marsh. Someone heard a White Breasted Nut Hatch, and I caught a glimpse of some American Gold Finch as they darted across the stream. The Gray Catbirds were singing their rusty meows in the willows by the stream. We went back to the meadow and heard some Downy Woodpecker on the other side of the holler. I also caught some Carolina Wren calls and learned what a Yellow Throated Vireo call sounds like.

Then the Warblers came, and let me tell you they are some of the most beautiful birds I have seen. Someone saw an Orange Crowned Warbler. Twitting in and out of the bushes all around us, the Warblers decided to put on a show. I saw many a Townsend's Warbler and a few Magnolia Warblers playing and chasing each other through the underbrush. There were two White Eyed Vireos sitting in the willow fifteen feet away. Some Tufted Titmouse came to join the party and finally I saw a Canada Warbler, which was a first for me. We also saw some Song Sparrows as we headed down the path to the lake.

Canada Warbler

We arrived at the lake at 9:15 and managed to scare off most of the Wood Ducks right away. Some Turkey Vultures were soaring up above the lake. We spotted a few Blue Jays flying across the water and a Cedar Waxwing on the way back. We also saw a flock of Eastern Bluebirds nestled in the Pines across the lake. When we got back to the field, the Red Shouldered Hawk was catching some thermals with his friend that looked like a juvenille Red Tailed Hawk. We decided to jump in the vans when a ranger gave us a tip off about woodpeckers up by the nature center. 

Red Headed Woodpecker

When we got to the nature center, we were amazed by the number of Red Headed woodpeckers scurrying all over the oaks. They were engaged in stashing acorns in holes they had drilled in the trees. I personally spotted at least six, it seemed everywhere I looked I found one. I wandered behind the nature center with Kyle and we scared a juvenille down onto a stump near us. This was cool because he lacked the red headed feature and just had a silvery-brownish head.

Excursion to the Ridges and the Hocking River

On the early Saturday morn of September the eleventh, the Ohio University ornithology class(and I along with it) ventured out into the vast wilderness of the ridges above Athens. I arrived by bicycle, substituting my morning coffee for the fresh cold breeze, and met the majority of my class looking nice and chipper from the night prior. Professor Miles was looking fresh with a flashy pair of red tennis shoes and camoflague pants that would put Bear Grylls to shame.

We piled into the vans and headed up to Grovensor St., where the vultures roost. Two type of vultures can be found in Athens, the Black Vulture(Coragyps atratus) and the Turkey Vulture(Cathartes aura). Usually, both of these species can be seen in the afternoons, cruising on thermals high above town. the Turkey Vulture is slightly larger than the Blacks, but the real distinguishing factor is that the Blacks are all black with a silvery patch on the underside of their wings. While soaring the Turkey Vulture has more of a v-shape than the black. These birds are scavengers, and also the largest birds in our area.

We next journeyed down to the Hocking river where the highlight of the show for me was seeing an Osprey(Pandion haliaetus). These birds are also known as water-hawks and are frequently seen hunting over lakes or rivers. This particular fellow was just cruising around in the early morning. Ospreys are a very distinctive bird that almost has an Eqyptian look to it with a black stripe behind the eye. We also spotted a Belted Kingfisher(Ceryle alcyon) on the power lines over the river. This particular bird was a male, telling from the dark blue triangle just below the neck on the chest. These birds are dark blue with a white collar and a large "mohawk" like crest. Flying overhead and landing on one of the larger trees up on the ridge I spotted a woodpecker. Upon closer inspection I found it was a Pileated Woodpecker(Dryocopus pileatus). The white wing patch and its red crest are a dead giveaway of this large woodpecker. The other species that we found on the mudflats by the river was a group of Killdeer(Charadrius vociferus). These are small birds with sticklike legs and a double black breast band which distinguishes them from the other shorebirds. Of course, with a strange name like Killdeer, their call also resembles kill-deer or keew-deew. On the return to the van we saw a group of swifts, which are vertically roosting birds with large mouths and torpedo shaped bodies. This particular species was the Chimney Swift(Chaetura pelagica) which undoubtedly were roosting in the chimneys of the ridges compound. We also saw some Blue Jays(Cyanocitta cristata) which are large blue, white and black birds with a loud cawing call.

We rode the vans up the hill to the ridge top and started walking into the forest beyond a graveyard and a pond. We saw an extraordinary number of American Robins(Turdus migratorius), which have a peach colored belly which as they roosted in the morning chill looked puffy and round. We heard many bird calls in the mixed forest, most of which I did not recognize. I heard two familiar calls, the Carolina  Chickadee(Poecile carolinensis) and the Carolina Wren(Thryothorus ludovicianus). These are two beautiful birds, the Chickadees have a laughing cry with a nice little black cap and a white face while the Carolina Wren is distinctive by the white margin about its eyes. As we went deeper we saw a few other new species for me the Red Eyed Vireo(Vireo olivaceus), Eastern Wood-Pewee(Contopus virens), and finally the Red-bellied Woodpecker(Melanerpes carolinus). The Vireo was most distinct by its red eyes and sleek shape; the Pewee was a fairly boring looking bird but immediately identifiable by its questioning call of "peewea?" The Red-belly was a special find for me with its beautiful ladder pattern of white and black on its back with a red hood covering the entire back portion of its head. This fellow just happened to be a male with a more complete hood. I also spotted some American Goldfinch(Carduelis tristis) soaring above the tree canopy.

All in all it was an excellent day for an amateur bird watcher!