Field Ornithology, Fall 2012

Field Ornithology Field Excursion, September 21, 2012

Every two years, biologist John Hnida teaches Ornithology and Mammalogy here at the college, and I try to get out with the class on their scheduled field trips, along with offering the class a slide show and discussion of area birds.

I have to upload some recent shots--including the Clay-colored Sparrow on the left--but you might enjoy looking at some of my favorite images collected on Flickr.

So on Friday, 21, September, we made our first two-hour walk along the Trace Trail; I added photographs to the set of images from the first trip from our second trip on Friday, 28 September.

On this second trip, Science Fiction and Fantasy author Andy Duncan joined the group--Andy gave  presentations on campus Thursday and Friday, all chronicled on the blog entry about him and his visit. 

Field Ornithology, Friday, 28 September, Trace Trail North of Peru

 Field Ornithology Class, October 12, Brownville

For our third, and probably final outing, we headed north from the Brownville trail head along the Trace Trail and the Missouri River.

On this crisp morning, we saw four kinds of Woodpeckers--Downy, Hairy, Red-Bellied, and a Yellow-shafted Flicker--Cormorants, Blue Jays, Black-capped Chickadees, and, among others, the mystery Flycatcher, perhaps a Phoebe, pictured on the left (image by Clayton Osburn).

I added photographs from this excursion to the set for the class.  

While a tad chilly, the fall colors brightened up the walk, as did the birds here and there.  On my way out of the area, a group of Eastern Blue Birds perched in the trees.

 

I added a video here and will include some other bird-related videos. This short sequence comes from October 6, early in the morning when thousands of Grackles invaded the fields and woods about my house: