Special: Return to Otter Lake, Part 2

[00:00:04] There's a yellow throat coming up ahead. So they like wetter habitats. That'll be the male song.

[00:00:58] Coming up on a common yellow throat.

[00:01:03] My name is Rob and this is Songbirding.

[00:01:29] Alright, common yellow throat ahead. I'm gonna wait here for a minute so we can listen.

[00:01:45] Mallard or possibly black duck. Common yellow throat. It's in the Wichita, Wichita, Wichita song.

[00:01:58] Which I sometimes like to say yellow throat, yellow throat, yellow throat. Same number of syllables.

[00:02:02] That is, I believe, Green Heron doing that cue cue call.

[00:02:44] The Swamp Sparrow song. The Trill. I think I heard American Robin as well.

[00:02:59] Sandhill Cranes. American Robin. Common yellow throat. Swamp Sparrow.

[00:03:44] Something's taking flight. It's out of sight though. It's not due to me.

[00:03:55] They wouldn't be able to see me or hear me. That's a good loud yellow throat.

[00:04:12] Oh, I see it now. It's coming up. I had a flu.

[00:04:18] Okay, it was up on this cedar.

[00:04:24] Got about as high up as the non-dead part of it goes.

[00:04:34] Step up here. Oh, there's a common yellow throat to sign here.

[00:05:03] Don't think this structure was here when I recorded last.

[00:05:44] Okay, I got a song sparrow photo.

[00:05:51] Oh, now this yellow throat might be tempting me to take a photo.

[00:05:58] There was a common loon singing over there.

[00:06:15] Phoebe just landed in front of me. Eastern Phoebe.

[00:06:17] They don't really sing this time of year.

[00:06:20] They're pretty much done breeding.

[00:06:22] Might get a call from them once in a while.

[00:06:26] It's probably got a nest underneath this structure actually.

[00:06:31] I don't know if the structure is tall enough I could check.

[00:06:37] I wonder if they're doing a second brood.

[00:06:42] Got some cicadas starting up.

[00:07:05] Oh yeah, there's a swamp sparrow.

[00:07:22] That's a swamp sparrow.

[00:07:29] That's spongy ground here.

[00:07:33] Cattail Marsh.

[00:07:34] So despite the name I tend to get swamp sparrows.

[00:07:52] In marshes, not swamps.

[00:07:55] And that is in open areas like this that are wetlands.

[00:07:58] And not closed in forests.

[00:08:03] Flooded forest would be another term for more of a swamp.

[00:08:10] Blue Jay calling.

[00:08:17] American Goldfinch going over.

[00:08:26] Goldfinch singing.

[00:08:33] Something else is calling.

[00:08:35] It's a blackbird of some sort I think.

[00:08:37] So I don't want to name the species of the blackbird.

[00:08:49] Because this area does have a rare species called a Brewer's blackbird that it could be.

[00:08:54] So I don't want to say it's definitely red-winged or a grackle.

[00:08:59] It's kind of distant and clining.

[00:09:00] I don't think it was a grackle because the tail was stuck out.

[00:09:03] It's possible it was a Brewer's blackbird.

[00:09:07] Also possible a red-winged blackbird.

[00:09:11] Don't think rusty blackbirds breed up here.

[00:09:14] I think that's further north.

[00:09:17] American Goldfinch.

[00:09:22] Swamp Sparrow.

[00:09:40] And a lovely half-moon above me too.

[00:09:45] Very clear in the daylight.

[00:09:53] American Goldfinch.

[00:09:54] A bit of an airplane here too.

[00:09:58] So...

[00:09:58] I don't actually see it so I don't know where it's going.

[00:10:02] It's gonna get louder or what?

[00:10:06] It's a problem with a...

[00:10:07] Oh, I see it now. Okay.

[00:10:10] You would think blue sky means it's easier to see things but it actually makes it harder.

[00:10:15] Your eyes just have no idea what is relative to what because it's all just one solid color.

[00:10:26] But if you have clouds you have a much easier time finding things.

[00:10:35] Blue Jay.

[00:10:46] I'm not sure what that was.

[00:10:48] Something that's hunkered down and flew out.

[00:10:50] Could have been American Woodcock.

[00:10:53] A.K.A. the Timberdoodle.

[00:10:58] Could have also been a duck.

[00:11:01] Not a mallard.

[00:11:03] Probably not wood duck.

[00:11:05] Both of them make pretty distinctive sounds when they fly out.

[00:11:08] Could have been a grouse but I don't think so.

[00:11:15] Blue Jay.

[00:11:16] Calling.

[00:11:17] They don't really have much by the way of song anyways.

[00:11:21] Calling is the thing they do.

[00:11:27] You can tell no one's been here in a while.

[00:11:29] At least a few hours because there's a lot of cobwebs.

[00:11:32] Not cobwebs but spiderwebs covering the trail.

[00:12:01] Black Cap Chickadee.

[00:12:13] You can hear some cedar waxwings.

[00:12:18] They're very high pitched birds so I hear them as just easily ignored by me because of how

[00:12:26] they kind of hide in the upper atmosphere of bird song frequencies.

[00:12:35] Hopefully we hear more of them and I can point them out better.

[00:12:49] This is the Black Cap Chickadee.

[00:13:27] Very healthy moss crop this year.

[00:13:34] Up here was anything like further south in Ontario.

[00:13:38] It probably didn't snow much compared to normal years but it was still cold.

[00:13:48] So you get a lot of moss growing.

[00:13:58] There's a robin here.

[00:13:59] See it?

[00:14:18] Breaking all kinds of spiderwebs here.

[00:15:11] There was...

[00:15:12] Oh there we go.

[00:15:14] There's indigo bunting on the other side of that field but it's pretty far.

[00:15:59] It is...

[00:15:59] There's so much dew here.

[00:16:05] My shoes, my hiking boots are soaked.

[00:16:08] As is the lower foot or so of my pants.

[00:16:15] So that'll cool me down a little bit.

[00:16:49] I hear yellow-bellied sapsucker.

[00:16:55] It's pretty faint.

[00:16:59] It's somewhere up ahead on the trail.

[00:17:07] American robin.

[00:17:21] Now the big question is what this field is going to be like that we're going through next.

[00:17:24] Is it going to be even wetter?

[00:17:28] Or is it going to be cut?

[00:17:30] Is it going to be a weird crop?

[00:17:33] No idea.

[00:17:59] Some butterflies here too.

[00:18:07] This trail is pretty wet from dew.

[00:18:10] There's some sun here.

[00:18:14] It hasn't been out long enough to really evaporate anything.

[00:18:18] Lots of dragonflies too.

[00:18:34] Some swamp sparrows.

[00:18:42] Got a common yellow-throat female in front of me.

[00:18:44] Chipping.

[00:18:46] Could also be juvenile.

[00:18:53] Female plumage type.

[00:18:58] Do you remember one year?

[00:19:00] Hiking through here.

[00:19:03] And having sandhill cranes.

[00:19:05] Just wandering around in this field.

[00:19:07] Is that bink, bink, bink?

[00:19:17] It's bob-link.

[00:19:27] You know, a song sparrow.

[00:19:36] Bob-link are done.

[00:19:37] They're breeding season.

[00:19:38] And they'll come to wetlands like this.

[00:19:41] As a staging grounds for their migration.

[00:19:49] We'll spend the month hanging around here.

[00:19:55] Most of the month of August, I think.

[00:19:57] And then they head south.

[00:20:01] Although we're still in July.

[00:20:03] But it's kind of mid to late when they start moving into places like this.

[00:20:09] Generally more on the late side.

[00:20:13] Song sparrow in front of me.

[00:20:27] I'm going to try to keep flies off the recorder.

[00:20:38] There's our song sparrow.

[00:20:52] Common yellow-throat up ahead here.

[00:21:05] Bit of a lazy Wichita.

[00:21:10] Oh.

[00:21:11] That bird was literally above my head as I walked by it.

[00:21:17] In this tall cedar.

[00:21:20] Northern white cedar.

[00:21:23] Or eastern white cedar.

[00:21:25] Depending on who you ask.

[00:21:37] Common loon.

[00:21:38] And common eel-throat.

[00:22:30] This is a bie-bier.

[00:22:32] Which is a call of an alder flycatcher.

[00:22:39] Or song, I guess you would say.

[00:22:43] I feel like with flycatchers it's...

[00:22:48] Yeah, it is a song.

[00:22:49] It's just it's one that they know instinctively rather than learn.

[00:23:05] Kind of a different kind of song.

[00:23:10] Oh, bobbling.

[00:23:14] Two of them.

[00:23:17] Doing all their bink bink bink.

[00:23:27] The alder flycatcher always sounds like a saying bie-bier.

[00:23:39] There's a willow flycatcher which looks pretty much identical.

[00:23:43] Sounds more like a whip-you.

[00:23:51] Got some blackbirds here who are not happy.

[00:24:02] So there's the alder flycatcher.

[00:24:03] A lot of annoyed blackbirds mixed with some bobblings.

[00:24:25] Common yellowthroat.

[00:24:34] And eastern meadowlark too.

[00:24:58] Songbirding Return to Otter Lake is a Songbirding Studios production.

[00:25:03] And was recorded, engineered, narrated, and created by me, Rob Porter.

[00:25:08] With cover art and logo design by Lauren Helton.

[00:25:12] And creative commons music from Scott Buckley.

[00:25:16] If you want to see what this hike looked like, there will be a YouTube version of this hike posted soon.

[00:25:22] Subscribe to Songbirding Studios on YouTube to be notified when that comes out.