Another Hike Through the Forest

Today I went hiking at the same state park I mentioned in a previous post. The only thing that changed is that it was a friend from boy scouts not my sister that was hiking with me. We are preparing for a high adventure trip through the mountains in New Mexico at a place called Philmont Scout Ranch this year. This scout ranch is the largest in the world and has a couple mountains reaching over 14,000 ft and of course some neat birds.

While hiking around the park in the humid weather we saw a number of birds including one that is fairly rare to our part of the state.

When we got to a place called Turtle Lake I heard the song of a Prothonotary Warbler! This is a pretty rare bird for our area. This past week a birdwatcher found a pair nesting about 45 minutes north from there on the IA-SD border. It is amazing that the area has has a couple sightings of this species in late June. I never did see the bird but maybe I will some other day when I'm out there. I also heard a Northern Parula which was the first one I saw at the park this year.

The valley that the lake is in has a small stream that had a few birds along it like a singing Louisiana Waterthrush and a Summer Tanager. We were able to see the tanager out in the open, which doesn't happen often.

After that we started to hike back. On the way I checked for the Cerulean Warbler that I heard a couple weeks beforehand but we could only find a Louisiana Waterthrush.

Other common forest birds that we saw or heard on the way back included Ovenbird and Scarlet Tanager but not much more.

A Hike Through the Forest

My sister and I took a four mile hike through a local state park a couple weeks ago. During the trip we were able to search many wooded ravines around the park, many of which held some nice birds. The first good bird we came across was a singing Cerulean Warbler. These warblers are somewhat rare to our area but obviously this spring we had a few more than usual. Since he was up in the high treetops were were unable to see him. Not to far down the trail from the warbler we heard a Summer Tanager. Just like the warbler, he was hidden in the treetops. The trail was downhill and as we got to the bottom we began hearing Louisiana Waterthrush. We had four during the whole trip. I was able to actually see one as it walked around near a small stream. Another Summer Tanager was heard but not seen as well.

The non birding highlight of the trip was seeing a baby deer. Luckily my sister had a cell phone with a camera with her so we could get some pictures.

I love to hike in this park and am always finding something new and interesting there, especially when it comes to birds. I am going out there tomorrow and hope to find some more good birds so keep watching for a post on that.