Blackwater Falls State Park is a wonderful location for a wide variety of nature-related activities. The park is centrally located — Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge (20,000 acres), Dolly Sods and Roaring Plains Wilderness (24,000 acres), Canaan Valley State Park (6,000 acres), Big Run Bog (730 acres), Fernow Experimental Forest (4,700 acres), and Otter Creek Wilderness (20,700 acres) surround the park. I have been teaching, speaking, and leading field trips at Blackwater for over 45 years. It is the perfect location for the WV Mountain Bird Discovery Weekend.
The weather for the weekend was great — cold mornings, little rain, both sun and clouds, and perfect temperatures for being out listening and looking for West Virginia’s high mountain birds.
The first program of the weekend was Jo Santiago’s “Flying Higher”. The bond between Jo and Freedom, the Bald Eagle, is amazing. Jo also brought along several other birds of prey. She shared stories about these birds and some of her vast knowledge of raptors. If you ever get a chance to see Jo’s program, we highly recommend it!
On Friday evening Jan presented her “Birding Essentials for Everyone” program.
Saturday’s field trip was to the Olsen Fire Tower area, Mill Race Park and Fernow Experimental Forest. Abby, one of our participants climbed the fire tower to get a view from above the tree tops.
There were many birds to hear, but few to see. They were singing from too far away, or were hidden in the leafy tree tops. On all of our spring birding trips this year, we had noticed that the spring wildflowers and other plants were 2 – 3 weeks ahead of last year’s timing. Although many birds were there, singing their breeding songs, the full leaf canopy made seeing them a challenge, but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of our birders!
Two birds we heard singing at several locations were the Veery and the Hermit Thrush, birds with amazing, ethereal songs.
One bird we heard often and had good views of was the…
INDIGO BUNTING.
Jan is pretty sure he was singing from the same exact tree he was in last year and the year before.
On Saturday evening I presented a program about the “Woodpeckers of West Virginia”. I taught about the songs and identification of the birds, as well as some natural history.
On Sunday morning we all traveled to Canaan Loop Road and encountered a nice variety of bird songs in the different habitats all along the way to Red Run.
At our last stop, Red Run, we finally had some great views of several different kinds of warblers.
The West Virginia Mountain Bird Discovery Weekend ended with great looks at some amazingly colorful birds. However, on the way home Jan and I had the opportunity to see one last, very special bird. As we explored a country road in Preston County, WV, we came upon a Barred Owl who had just caught a mouse. When we arrived on the scene, the owl flew away. Having experienced this owl behavior before, I knew the owl would land fairly nearby in a tree in the woods, perhaps close enough for us to see it and maybe take some photos.
It was a wonderful ending to our trip with some great people exploring the amazing birds of our West Virginia mountains.
Bill Beatty Nature 