The Naturalist's Corner

Foggy fall morning at Lake Junaluska

I decided to get out and get a breath of autumn air this morning (Saturday, Oct. 2) by taking a quick tour around Lake Junaluska. It was pretty fresh and there was a little white sheen to some of the rooftops along U.S. 23/74.

By the time I reached the Junaluska golf course I was socked in. I decided to stop at the little parking area at Richland Creek on the Waynesville Greenway. The fog was thick and close.

There were a few chirps emanating from the fog; the occasional roar of traffic along the four-lane; the tink of golf balls being launched by metal woods from the fog-obscured fairway across the creek and then, the unmistakable twittering of hummingbirds. A pair of lingering female ruby-throated hummingbirds were chasing each other around a batch of Japanese honeysuckle that had been coaxed into blooming by the spring-like vernal period.

A mewing gray catbird soon appeared from the middle of the honeysuckle tangle. A Tennessee warbler passed by hawking insects in the brush along the far side of the creek, and a pair of gray squirrels were busy plucking the few remaining walnuts from a nearby black walnut tree. There were a few song sparrows, a couple of cardinals, some crows and blue jays, an eastern phoebe and a female belted kingfisher was stationed on a dead branch just above the creek.

I left the greenway and headed for the fog-shrouded lake. The silhouette of a double-crested cormorant was barely visible. When I stopped to get a better look I could also pick out a few pied-billed grebes through my binoculars. Continuing around the lake, it became apparent that the pied-billed migration was in high gear. I didn’t count individuals but I must have seen at least 15. The winter population of coots is also growing by leaps and bounds.

I took a quick side trip to the Corneille Bryan Native Garden. Pink and white turtleheads, deep blue gentian and white and blue asters joined the blazing red euonymus berries like colored candles in the fog. The liquid “whoit!” of Swainson’s thrushes mingled with the gurgling brook and the fog dripping from leaves. There must have been a half-dozen Swainson’s foraging in the garden.

I decided to make one more stop at the small wetlands behind the dining hall at the lake. It was nice to see the new NC Birding Trail sign dedicated by the Great Smoky Mountains Audubon chapter. Lake Junaluska is site number 37 in the mountain guide to the NC Birding Trail.

Lake Junaluska has a way of always surprising you, and this trip was no different. I spied a couple of warblers flying into a large black cherry adjacent the wetlands. Binoculars revealed a couple of bay-breasted warblers. As I approached to get a better look, I noticed movement in the tag alders along both sides of the small ditch at the wetlands. There was a mixed flock of migrating warblers chasing insects. Bay-breasteds made up the bulk of the flock, but I also saw one Cape May, one black-throated green, one blackpoll and a couple of chestnut-sided warblers. And to top it off, at the end of the wetlands was a pair of wood ducks.

When I threw in the starlings, mockingbirds, a couple of woodpeckers and the other usual suspects, I wound up with 39 species. Not bad for a quick, foggy trip around the lake.

The Naturalist's Corner

North Carolina’s loss – Louisiana’s gain

Chris Canfield has stepped down as executive director of Audubon North Carolina to assume the position of vice president for Gulf of Mexico Conservation and Restoration. Canfield took the helm at Audubon North Carolina in 2000 and during his 10-year tenure the organization has grown in scope and stature to become one of the premier conservation/environmental organizations in the state – its influence reaching from the mountains to the sea.

Canfield was awarded National Audubon’s Charles H. Callison Award in 2009 for his outstanding leadership and service. John Flicker, then National Audubon president, noted, “He [Canfield] has made Audubon North Carolina a model for Audubon’s state programs nationwide.”

Some of Audubon North Carolina’s accomplishments under Canfield’s watch include spearheading a grassroots coalition to stop the U.S. Navy from building an airfield adjacent to Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge; working to improve natural resource management at Cape Hatteras National Seashore; implementing a statewide Important Bird Area program that includes four million acres at 96 sites across the state and helping, with partners, to establish North Carolina’s Birding Trail that stretches from the Outer Banks, across the Piedmont to the peaks of Western North Carolina.

“I’m proud of what we’ve done in North Carolina,” Canfield said. He noted that it was especially rewarding to work with local Audubon chapters, individuals, groups and agencies across the state. Canfield saw North Carolina’s IBA program as a way to assimilate, enhance, expand and incorporate different natural resource goals and land ethics into an overarching conservation initiative that could simultaneously meet a myriad of ecological and environmental needs. “And I believe it’s as good a model as any out there,” he said.

Canfield’s new position was not on any Audubon job board and Canfield did not apply for it. “At the (Audubon NC) annual meeting in Highlands, I spoke from my heart about the oil spill and the environmental impacts along the Gulf Coast,” Canfield said. “Next thing I know, I got a call from Audubon headquarters in New York saying we want you to coordinate the work going on in the Gulf.

“It threw me, at first. I thought, uh-oh, the universe is calling my bluff. But,” he said, “I have Tabasco in my soul,” referring to the fact that he was born in Baton Rouge and spent the first 20 years of his life in Louisiana and south Alabama.

Canfield toured the area with National Audubon president David Yarnold and said, “I am humbled by the work going on in the Gulf and what I’ve been asked to oversee.”

The position is a work in progress. “There’s a lot, yet, to be figured out,” Canfield said. “There’s a lot of great work going on along the Gulf from Texas to Florida, and it’ll be my job to codify and coordinate all these parts to create an in-depth program to benefit the entire region.

“We know how to deal with oil on a beach. But we don’t know what the long-term impacts could be.”

Canfield said that BP should step up and do more to assist in restoration in the Gulf. He said it would be part of his job to figure out how to work with the myriad oil and energy companies that are as much a part of the gumbo of Gulf coastal life as the marshes and estuaries they drill in. “We know we can do it better,” he said.

My North Carolina mountain heart will miss Chris, but the Tabasco in my Louisiana soul welcomes him home.

The Naturalist's Corner

Panther Top fire tower

My family spent a wonderful sunny Sunday afternoon this week in the Tusquitee Ranger District of the Nantahala National Forest just west of Murphy.

Our first stop was the Panther Top Lookout tower on Forest Service Road 85. The 30-foot high former live-in tower was constructed in 1940 by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Panther Top is the western-most fire tower in the state.

Its 2,293 feet elevation will fool you. In fact when we arrived at the summit, Denise remarked, “It’s like we’re at the top of the world.” The illusion is created because you are overlooking low-lying valleys all around with mountains in the distant background.

I’ve been doing spring bird-point counts for the Forest Service in the Tusquitee District for four years now and almost every fall I get back for an afternoon to look for migrating raptors simply because there are a couple of places where you can see lots of sky.

In the past I have focused my attention on the north end of the Beech Creek Seed Orchard. And each trip has resulted in a few migrants. I believe the biggest day was between 30 and 40 broad-winged hawks and three bald eagles.

This trip I decided to scope out the fire tower. After about 20 minutes I caught a bald eagle that was already south of the tower and watched as it continued to track to the south-southwest. It was probably another half-hour of scanning the skies, watching little girls gambol on the grassy knob and tracking butterflies that danced over the bald (a couple of monarchs, some sulphurs and great-spangled fritillaries and two black swallowtails) before I found two more black specks through the binoculars. These were so far in the distance that I couldn’t find them without the bins.

But as I watched them circle and glide they came nearer and nearer till we could make them out with the naked eye and soon there were five broad-wings that lazily circled and then streamed off to the southwest.

Soon after the hawks another mature bald eagle appeared, and as it circled the sun sparkled brilliant-white from its head and tail. I lost this bird and don’t know if it was migrating or checking out the draw-down Hiwassee Reservoir for a meal.

We left the fire tower and went to a spot where there is a colony of redheaded woodpeckers. We played a tape and soon three redheaded woodpeckers were over the truck checking us out.

It was getting late for migrants, around 5 p.m., when we left the woodpeckers and made one last stop in the seed orchard. We didn’t add any raptors to our list but did see one more migrant monarch and one bright, fresh Gulf fritillary.

All in all a wonderful Sunday afternoon.

The Good, The Bad and The Deadly

The Good, The Bad and The Deadly is one of five classes that will be offered by the Asheville Mushroom Club (AMC) during its annual FungiFest, which will be held Sept. 18 at the North Carolina Arboretum.

The day-long event will include displays, classes and workshops. At 10:15 a.m. there will be a large display of a variety of regional mushrooms all identified. A mycologist will also be on hand to answer questions. The display is free and open to the public. Classes and workshops will be available for a fee. The classes are:

Meet Your Mushrooms: The Good, The Bad and The Deadly — an introduction to fungi, 9:15 a.m.-10:15 a.m. Cost: $15 for the public, $11 AMC members.

Recycling & Composting with Mushrooms: Learn how to grow mushrooms using ordinary household materials, 10:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Cost: $17 for the public, $13 AMC members.

Cooking with Mushrooms: Enjoy a cooking demonstration and tasting featuring recipes from the cookbook “Cooking with the Asheville Mushroom Club,” 11:45 a.m.-1:15 p.m. Cost: $19 for the public, $15 AMC members.

Medicinal Mushrooms for Immunity and Well-Being: Discover the health benefits and medicinal uses of mushrooms, 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. Cost: $15 for the public, $11 AMC members.

Growing Your Own Shiitake Mushrooms: Master the basics of drilling, inoculating, stacking and caring for shiitake logs, 2:45 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Cost: $15 for the public, $11 AMC members.

The AMC was founded in 1983. The club motto is “fun, fungi, friendship, forays, freedom and spaghetti.” By the end of 1983 membership had grown to 11. But those 11 kept foraying and having fun — not to mention learning a lot about mushrooms — and today there are probably more than 100 dues-paying members.

The Western North Carolina Nature Center at 75 Gashes Creek Road in east Asheville has been home to the AMC since its inception. Monthly meetings are still held there from March through October at 7 p.m. on the second Wednesday of each month. Meetings are free and open to the public. Forays, on the other hand, require membership. To learn more about the AMC drop in on one of their meetings, check out their website at www.ashevillemushroomclub.com/index.asp or visit the FungiFest at the Arboretum for a little fun, fungi and friendship.

Class space at the FungiFest will be limited. To register call 828.665.2492, Ext. 314 or go to www.ncarboretum.org.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Naturalist's Corner

Fall migration is heating up

It looks like last week’s long-billed curlew was a harbinger of things to come. A quick perusal of the Carolinas Birding List at http://www.birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CARO.html#1283714291 showed fall migrants popping up all across the Carolinas.

I guess as far as real rarities go the Say’s phoebe at Bald Head Island in Brunswick County just south of Wilmington tops the list. But nearby fall migrant hotspots are producing good birds. Some good finds for Ernie Hollingsworth of Hendersonville at Jackson Park last Sunday included, among others, yellow-bellied flycatcher, blue-winged warbler, Cape May warbler and Wilson’s warbler. Ron Clark of Kings Mountain was also at Jackson Park last Sunday and his sightings included blue-gray gnatcatcher, Swainson’s thrush, magnolia warbler, Cape May and two Baltimore orioles. Simon Thompson of Asheville also reported Cape Mays from his yard.

The mass exodus has begun and within the next month somewhere between 9,000 and 12,000 broad-winged hawks will soar over Caesars Head State Park in South Carolina. Wing Nuts, a self-named group of volunteers who count migrating raptors at Caesars Head each year are already there getting cricks in their necks and are always happy to share with visiting birders and/or interested sightseers.

Caesar’s Head State Park is located on U.S. 276 in South Carolina just below the North Carolina border. To contact Caesar’s Head to see what’s flying call 864.836.6115.

A great place to get a look at migrating passerines (songbirds) is Ridge Junction Overlook near the entrance to Mount Mitchell State Park at milepost 385 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Ridge Junction is unique because, much like a hawk watch, you can bring a chair and get comfy at the overlook and wait for migrants to come through the pass up and over the parkway.

To get to Jackson Park from Waynesville take Exit 49 B off of I-26 East. Continue on U.S. 64 West towards downtown Hendersonville, go through the traffic light at end of exit ramp onto Four Seasons Boulevard (U.S. 64) for 1.6 miles (passing four more traffic lights). After a wetland area on the left, turn left at the fifth traffic light (Harris Street). Go 0.2 mile to stop sign at end of street. Turn left onto E. 4th Avenue, enter park and follow road to administration building (red-brick house on left) and parking.

And don’t forget that migrant waterfowl will begin gracing Lake Junaluska any day now. It’ll be mid-October before large numbers begin passing through but wandering herons and/or egrets, terns and gulls could appear now as well as a teal or two.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

WNC birders jolted from summer doldrums

Birders are a restless, impatient lot. From the end of June till the end of August they walk around in a kind of stupor. You will see them occasionally stop shuffling, cock their head with hand cupped behind their ear, mutter “wren” and shuffle on, or suddenly, reflexively jerk their head upwards as the shadow of a pipevine swallowtail dances on the path beneath their feet.

Then, late August comes and imperceptibly, at first, the afternoon and evening light begins to shift hues as we wobble out of the sun’s direct glare. The wind has a different feel and a different smell; birders’ gaits quicken and lighten and binoculars are dusted off and stashed in the car or left out on the kitchen table. Migration is coming!

Some of the earliest migrants are shorebirds. I think it was Peter Matthiessen who coined the term “wind birds” in reference to shorebirds in his 1967 book The Wind Birds.

“The restlessness of shorebirds, their kinship with the distance and swift seasons, the wistful signal of their voices down the long coastlines of the world make them, for me, the most affecting of wild creatures. I think of them as birds of wind, “as wind birds.”

And wind birds can cover great distances in a short time and sometimes wind up in odd places.

And what better to stir the blood of WNC birders and jolt them from their summer doldrums than to have one appear magically on the green turf of Hooper Lane’s Super Sod farm, as if conjured from the wind itself – a long-billed curlew.

The long-billed curlew is a large (raven-sized) shorebird with a long (up to eight inches in adults, shorter in juveniles) decurved bill. The long-billed curlew is cinnamon to tawny-brown above and buff-colored below. It nests on high plains from southwest Canada to the northwestern U.S., across the plains states, down to the Texas panhandle. Most of the population winters from the southwestern U.S. to Central America. A few make it to the East Coast each fall and winter.

But according to Harry LeGrand, chair of the North Carolina Bird Records Committee, the Hooper Lane bird would be the first-ever documented record of an inland long-billed curlew in the state. And according to Catawba park ranger Dwayne Martin of Hickory, who couldn’t resist temptation, the curlew was still present at Hooper Lane as of Monday, Aug. 30, at 6:30 p.m.

To get to Hooper Lane, take the Asheville Airport exit (exit 40) off of I-26. Go west on N.C. 280 approximately 4 miles to a traffic light at the intersection of N.C. 191. Turn left, travel approximately 1/2 mile, turn left onto Jefferies Road. Continue about 2 miles and Hooper Lane is on the right. The bird was last reported from the field near the intersection of Hooper and Jefferies.

If you go, please remember to stay on the gravel road or on the edge of the field. Super Sod has been quite birder-friendly over the years, all they ask is that you do not walk or drive on the sod fields, do not block gates and park only along Hooper or Jefferies, not on any of their turn-rows!

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Won one for the piper

On Aug. 17, federal judge Royce C. Lambeth ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s designation of critical habitat for the federally threatened piping plover in areas of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore were in compliance with the Endangered Species Act. The ruling was in response to a suit filed by the Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance. Defendant-intervenors in the lawsuit were Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center. The habitat will cover a little more than 2,000 acres in Dare and Hyde counties including areas on Cape Hatteras, Hatteras Inlet, Oregon Inlet and Ocrakoke Island.

Critical habitat for the imperiled piping plover has been a contentious issue along the Outer Banks for years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first proposed critical habitat for the plover in 2001. CHAPA challenged the designation in federal court and prevailed. The court said that Fish and Wildlife had not justified the designation and in 2004 remanded the action back to the agency to correct errors and for clarification. In 2008, Fish and Wildlife published its revisions and CHAPA sued again. This time, Judge Lambeth ruled that Fish and Wildlife had met all of its requirements under the Endangered Species Act.

The piping plover is a small (bluebird-sized) shorebird. It is gray to grayish-brown above and white below. Males and females are similar in appearance. During breeding season they show a dark (black or brown) neck band (sometimes incomplete, especially in females), a small black bar across the forehead and a black tip on the tail. The black bands fade in the winter.

The piping plover breeds on the Great Plains from Alberta, Canada to Oklahoma and along the northern Great Lakes and down the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to the Outer Banks. Coastal piping plovers like the ones on the Outer Banks nest above the high tide line at the end of sandspits, on gently sloping foredunes, on sparsely vegetated dunes and in protected areas behind primary dunes.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, major contributors to the decline of the Atlantic Coast piping plover include loss and degradation of habitat due to development and shoreline stabilization. The Service also states that disturbance by humans and pets reduces the functional suitability of nesting habitat and can cause direct and indirect mortality of chicks and eggs.

When the Atlantic Coast piping plover, Charadrius melodus, was listed as threatened in 1986, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife estimated there were only about 800 pairs left. Today, thanks to an intensive protection effort there are around 1,500 pairs of Atlantic Coast piping plover.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Atlantic Coast Piping Plover Revised Recovery Plan the objective is to remove the plover from the Threatened list by increasing the numbers and productivity of breeding pairs and providing long-term protection of breeding and wintering habitat. The goal is to have at least 2,000 breeding pairs along the coast and maintain that population for five years.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore can figure prominently in that recovery plan because it is one of the few places along the Atlantic coast that harbors piping plover year-round, through spring and fall migration and during nesting season and as a wintering ground.

The oil is gone! Long live the oil!

A week or so ago White House energy adviser Carol Browner was hitting the morning TV circuit, telling anyone who would listen that the majority of the more than 200 million gallons of crude that gushered into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s Deepwater Horizon blow out on April 20 was gone. According to Browner, 75 percent of the oil had been captured, burned, evaporated or broken down by natural environmental processes.

It’s long been understood that the Gulf is quite resilient when it comes to oil and other hydrocarbons. After all, there have always been seeps along the Gulf floor where hydrocarbons bubble up and escape. And since the beginning of the offshore boom there have been leaks and accidents.

Today — with more than 600 platforms and more than 30,000 miles of pipeline in the Gulf — leaked oil is not hard to find. And the warm fecund waters of the Gulf apparently produce a plethora of oil-gobbling microbes. And crude is water-soluble. Just the expanse of the Gulf and the motion of the ocean help dilute and disperse the oil.

But how gone is gone? Remember, we’re talking about BP and government estimates. They told us in late April that — gasp — 1,000 barrels a day were leaking into the Gulf. After they went back and sharpened their pencils, they admitted that was a slightly low estimate – and it was more like 40,000 barrels or more per day. They also told us, initially, that there was no underwater oil because oil rose to the surface. But discoveries by researchers from the University of Georgia, the University of South Florida and others of huge undersea plumes of oil that could be traced back to the Deepwater site made them recant those statements as well.

Apparently there are no more huge slicks sliding around on the surface of the Gulf and that is, indeed, a good thing. But the status and/or effects of those undersea plumes, where cooler temperatures and fewer microbes could mean a longer shelf life for the oil, are still to be determined.

And Browner failed to mention that the 25 percent of oil unaccounted for in that report is more than 10 times the total volume of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez. If BP and government officials are having trouble finding oil, I’m sure Louisiana coastal residents could help them out.

Drew Wheelan, American Birding Association’s conservation coordinator, did a fly over of coastal Louisiana in early August. “In the last four days I have seen more oil, by volume, than I had previously in my entire first 11 weeks here in Louisiana,” reported Wheelan.

Elmer’s Island Wildlife Refuge near Grand Isle was one of the first places impacted by the oil spill. Oil washed ashore as early as mid May. On Aug. 13 Wheelan noted, “This oil on Elmer’s Island has been there since the very first days that the oil hit, somewhere around May 20. From the air, it is very apparent that they have just begun to scrape some oil out of the northwest corner of the deposit. This oil has been there for literally two and a half months without effort to pick it up.”

There were also reports of oil onshore last week from Pelican Island, Oyster Bayou, Bayou De West and many other locations. Plus slicks near South Pass and North Pass at the mouth of the Mississippi.

The well is not leaking at the moment and the oil in the Gulf is being diluted and/or dispersed and both of those are really, really good things. But there is a lot of oil left in the environment, especially in coastal Louisiana, and there are a lot of unanswered questions regarding the fate of those undersea plumes. I wouldn’t raise any “mission accomplished” banners just yet.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The un-hummingbird

Toni Mullany of Waynesville sent me an email the other day noting a guest scoping out her phlox. She described the critter thusly: “It is about the size of a large bumblebee. It is all black. It has furry head and a large proboscis. Its movements are rather slow.  There is usually a pair. It seems to be a cross between a butterfly and a bumblebee drawn by Dr. Seuss or a very creative 6 year old.” And I believe that is about as good a description as one could give in reference to the hummingbird clearwing moth, Hemaris thysbe.

Hemaris thysbe is in the family Sphingidae or sphinx moths. The hummingbird clearwing moth ranges from Alaska through British Columbia to Oregon and east across the Great Plains to Maine and south to Florida and Texas. And while the body of the bug itself is about the size of a large carpenter bee, the wingspan is usually just over two inches. This brightly colored moth is diurnal and hovers while nectaring at flowers with its long proboscis like a hummingbird.

The thorax (remember it’s an insect — with a head, thorax and abdomen) is generally a golden to brownish olive above and cream or yellowish below. The abdomen is so dark burgundy that it often appears black much like the throat of a male ruby-throated hummingbird. The cellophane-like wings are mostly clear with reddish borders.

There are four species of Hemaris in the Americas. They include H. thysbe, H. diffinis, H. gracilis and H. senta. Senta is a western species commonly known as the Rocky Mountain clearwing. I believe thysbe would be the most common species in Western North Carolina. Diffinis or the snowberry clearwing can easily be distinguished from thysbe by its yellow thorax and abdomen. Gracilis or the slender clearwing is a pretty rare moth in the East. It can be distinguished from thysbe by its chestnut bands or streaks on the sides of the thorax.

Some of the primary host plants for the genus Hemaris include honeysuckle, hawthorns, cherries, plums and snowberry. Hemaris caterpillars pupate in cocoons that are spun on the ground.

The hummingbird clearwing in Western North Carolina probably hatches two broods, one between March and June and one between August and October. In the northern part of their range, Hemaris moths generally produce one brood sometime between April and August. In Louisiana and other southern states the hummingbird clearwing may produce as many as six broods.

Besides phlox, adult hummingbird clearwings will nectar at various asters, bee balm, vetch, blueberry, thistle and butterfly bush.

If you have butterflies and hummingbirds in your yard or flower garden, be sure to keep an eye out for these small imposters.

Bird’s the word

Are you a fledgling birder? Would you like to learn more about the feathered flocks that visit your feeder and grace your yard?

Join Simon Thompson at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville on Wednesday, Aug. 4, at 8:15 a.m. for a very informative and personal “Introduction to Bird Watching.” The two-hour program costs $15 for Arboretum members and $19 for non-members. You may register online at http://ow.ly/2ezx5 or by phone at 828.665.2492.

Thompson is one of the foremost birding experts in the Carolinas and has gained national and international recognition through his Ventures Birding Tours. He is also co-owner of Asheville’s Wild Birds Unlimited. To learn more about Thompson and Ventures and Wild Birds Unlimited go to www.birdventures.com or drop by Wild Birds Unlimited at 1997 Hendersonville Road in Asheville.

Thompson brings his same enthusiasm for birding and joy of sharing whether he is pointing out a cinnamon-breasted warbler on the Cape of South Africa to someone with 600 species on his life-list or explaining the difference between a song sparrow and a chipping sparrow to a beginner on the grounds of the North Carolina Arboretum.

Thompson emphasized that the program is geared for beginners and said it would begin with a walk around Arboretum grounds. “We’ll walk around the grounds where we’ll likely see chipping sparrows, bluebirds and robins,” he said, “but, of course, we’ll keep our eyes open for whatever we might find.”

He said emphasis would be put on shape, size, habits and habitat. “But we’ll also listen,” Thompson said, to see if participants can learn about songs and calls.

According to Thompson the second part of the workshop would be inside and would be a little more formal. Thompson will delve into the world of optics and field guides discussing the pros and cons of the myriad of choices and helping workshop participants learn how to choose which products are best suited to their needs.

This program is a great place to start if you are a novice birder interested in getting a good start on techniques and equipment that will make it easier for you to get a grasp on this truly accessible and thoroughly enjoyable hobby of bird watching. I have often seen beginning birders go home crestfallen from a “bird walk” or “birding program” where the majority of participants were accomplished birders and no one had the time to stop and point out the robin or towhee that was singing.

You don’t walk out on a golf course for the first time and shoot a 75. You don’t walk out into your backyard for the first time and know all the species of birds that can be seen or heard. You have to learn. You have to learn technique and you have to learn skill and you need the proper equipment.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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