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You may access an up-to-date, online version of Birds of Putnam County, Tennessee, as well as about 100 preliminary species accounts for a planned, online version of Birds of the Upper Cumberland Region, via the links below:
Some information and philosophical comments on the avocational pursuits of bird-watching, listing, and birding, as well as the vocational pursuit of ornithology, are provided at the following link:
Some reasons for watching, counting, and studying birds are provided at the following link:
Below I provide links to various ornithological datasets of potential interest to readers of this website.
The year's next major birding events are the 2008 UCR Fall Bird Counts, all-day bird surveys conducted in several Regional counties. Click on the following item to learn more about the Fall Bird Counts:
The year's most recent major birding events were the 2008 UCR Foray in DeKalb County and the UCR Breeding Bird Surveys (BBSs). Click on the following items to learn more about results of these birding events:
ParkWatch is a bird project initiated during January 2005. If you do any birding in a park or other public access birding site within the Upper Cumberland Region, please consider taking part in this project. For details, click on this link:
The proportions of the color morphs of the Eastern Screech-Owl within the Upper Cumberland Region are not precisely known. If you encounter road-killed screech-owls and if you are willing to classify their color morph, as well as provide a few other data about them and possibly take photographs, then you can contribute to information archived at the following page of this website:
I currently send out occasional email messages relating to birds in the Upper Cumberland Region of Kentucky and Tennessee, and in the past I have sent out weekly messages--known as BIRDFOLK messages. If you think you might like to receive the current, occasional version of these UCR-related messages, click below to see what you need to do to be included in the list of those receiving them:
Each Wednesday morning during the academic year at Tennessee Tech--from late August to late November and from late January to late April--I conduct a birdwalk for 2-3 hours, usually at a site where bird data need to be collected. Most birdwalks in the past have been conducted at Cane Creek Park (CCP) in Cookeville; a few birdwalks have been conducted at other sites including Ensor Sink Natural Area in Cookeville and Dillon Pond in Livingston. The primary purpose of these birdwalks is to gather data about the bird populations at the sites where the birdwalks take place. However, a secondary purpose of the birdwalks is to improve the birding skills of those who take part in them. If you wish to join me for these walks, arrive at the designated site for the birdwalk a little before 7:00 A.M. (CDT/CST). If the weather allows, we will conduct the birdwalk; if inclement weather threatens, the birdwalk may be shortened or even canceled. Please make no attempts to change the time of these walks, the direction of the walks, or the duration of the walks, as these factors affect the comparability of the resulting data. And please keep non-bird-related chatter to a minimum. Fall 2007 birdwalks commenced September 19 at the Merle Osborn Nature Preserve (MONP), a fairly new public access birding site in Putnam County where an effort to gather bird data was much needed; fall 2007 birdwalks at MONP continued until November 28. Spring 2008 birdwalks were conducted at Cane Creek Park beginning January 30 and ending April 23 except for March 5 (spring break) when there was no birdwalk; Spring 2008 birdwalks focused on finding evidence of breeding in preparation for the DeKalb County Foray (conducted during late May 2008). Note: Due to the press of many obligations, I am suspending all Fall 2008 birdwalks at CCP; in the event that my life gets less obligated, birdwalks at CCP may resume in late January 2009.
The Upper Cumberland Region (UCR) of Kentucky and Tennessee now holds most of my attention, as far as field work with birds is concerned. To access a list of the counties comprising this diverse yet distinct Region, as well as check-lists of birds recorded in all UCR counties and gazetteers describing public access birding sites in many UCR counties, click below:
Upper Cumberland Region Bird Reports summarize ornithological events of major or minor significance around the Region for various seasons. To access a page with links to reports for all seasons since the beginning of the third millennium (Winter 2000-2001), click below:
Creating a check-list of birds recorded in the UCR was a goal I fulfilled in December 2001. Click on the following item to see the most recent version of the list, which includes a link to a page describing the abundance and status of all species occurring Regionally (this page in turn includes links to preliminary species accounts for many rare birds in the Region):
For links to pages that provide arrival and departure dates for migrant birds in the UCR for migration seasons since spring 2001, click below:
Christmas Bird Counts
(CBCs)
are one of my favorite bird-monitoring activities. I began taking part in
CBCs during the 1971-1972 CBC season. As of the the most recent
CBC season (2007-2008), I have participated in 124 CBCs (counting only those submitted to
the bi-continental database). CBCs are currently conducted in ten
counties of the Upper
Cumberland Region each winter; in the past CBCs have also been conducted
in at least two other counties of the Region. To get to a page with links to results
of CBCs conducted Regionally, as well as other information relating to CBCs,
click on the link below:
Results of Great Backyard Bird Counts (GBBCs)--held most recently 15-18 February 2008--in the Region since 2003 may be accessed by clicking on the following link:
Spring Bird Counts (SBCs) or Spring BirdBlitzes (SBBs) have been conducted in fourteen counties of the Upper Cumberland Region. To access a page with links to results of SBCs and SBBs conducted Regionally in years past, click on the link below:
A Foray is a 4-day bird-monitoring effort designed to document the breeding status, distribution, and, if possible, the abundance of all species breeding within a single county. The 2008 UCR Foray took place in DeKalb County, TN, during Memorial Day week-end (23-26 May), and the 2007 UCR Foray took place in White County, TN, also during Memorial Day week-end (25-28 May). Results of the 2007 UCR Foray are especially interesting as they may be compared to results of a foray conducted in White County a quarter century earlier (28-31 May 1982). The target county for the 2012 UCR Foray will probably be Bledsoe County, TN, since a foray was conducted in that county a quarter century earlier (1987). The target county for the 2011 UCR Foray will probably be Overton County, TN, since there was a foray in that county a quarter century earlier (1986). Cumberland County, TN, would seem like a good candidate for 2010 since there was a foray (results of which are currently unavailable) in that county during 1985. Jackson County has been suggested as the target county of the 2009 UCR Foray. To access more information about UCR Forays, click on the following link:
Breeding Bird Surveys
(BBSs) are another of my favorite bird-monitoring activities. As of 2008, I
have conducted 209 BBSs (129 in TN; 73 in KY; 4 in FL; and 3 in WV) for the federal program and many others for various federal agencies.
Three of the federal BBSs I run each year are
located in Tennessee and four in Kentucky. Here
are links to the national BBS website and to BBS data for the Upper Cumberland
Region:
Fall Bird Counts
(FBCs) or Fall BirdBlitzes (FBBs) have thus far been conducted
in six counties of the UCR--Clinton County, Kentucky, and Macon, Morgan, Pickett, Putnam, and White counties,
Tennessee. To access a page with links to results
of such counts conducted Regionally, click on the link below:
Directions and a form for conducting
a Thanksgiving Window Watch may be found at the link below:
If you watch birds carefully in your own yard or neighborhood, you might be interested in the results of YardWatch, an informal bird project focused on birds of yards and neighborhoods within the Upper Cumberland Region during 2003 and 2004; this project may be resuscitated at some point in the future. Details are available via this link:
I've spent several
thousand hours during several hundred trips recording birds in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area
in south-central Kentucky and north-central Tennessee; my wife, Barbara, has done
much the same
in the Obed Wild and Scenic River; click on the link below
to see some of the results of our bird-monitoring efforts in these parks:
I've recorded birds (and butterflies) on
some sections of Cumberland Trail State Park; preliminary results are
summarized at the following
link:
In April 2003, Barbara Stedman and I
began visits to eight National Park Service units located in the Appalachian
Highlands and the Cumberland Piedmont to inventory the birds at these sites
under contract with the NPS. Field work for these inventories ended in
July 2006 (or sooner), but production of final reports of the results of these
inventories continued until August 2007. Preliminary results of these inventory efforts,
or in some cases the final reports themselves, may be reviewed by clicking on the following link:
Horned Grebes
(HOGR) are one of my favorite birds to study.
I especially like to follow the activities of HOGRs in the wintering flock at the Floating Mill
Recreation Area on
Center Hill Lake, DeKalb County, Tennessee. Some data about numbers of HOGRs in this flock
since 1993 can be
accessed at the link below:
The Cerulean Warbler (CERW) is a songbird with a population number that is decreasing. This warbler might be placed on the list of endangered species if its population decrease continues. Using a nonstandard survey protocol, I monitor a population of CERWs in Frozen Head State Natural Area, Morgan County, Tennessee, each year . Click on the first item below if you want to see the results of this survey. In addition I began monitoring a population of Cerulean Warblers in Putnam County, Tennessee, in 2004; to see results of the survey, also conducted using a nonstandard protocol, click on the second item below. My wife, Barbara Stedman, conducts a BBS in the Daniel Boone N. F. in Pulaski Co., KY; click on the third item for results of this BBS. I formerly conducted a breeding bird survey in the Daniel Boone National Forest in an area where there is a dense population of CERWs; this route starts in Whitley County, Kentucky, and ends in McCreary County, Kentucky; click on the last item below if you want to see the results of this BBS, including data for CERW. The first and second of these sources of data reveal a depressing trend in CERW numbers.
Some data relating to the colonization of Tennessee by Eurasian Collared-Dove are presented with permission via the following link:
I occasionally teach non-credit
courses about bird identification through the TTU School of
Interdisciplinary Studies and Extended
Education. Information about such classes is provided at these links:
In May of most years, Barb and I also teach
a course on birdsong identification for personnel with various state and federal
agencies. The latest course, for personnel working for the Daniel Boone National
Forest and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR), was taught May 12-16,
2008; Cumberland Falls State Park was the site from which field trips for
this course began. You may see a list of species heard and/or seen during the
May 2008 course--conducted at Cumberland Falls State Resort Park and the Daniel
Boone National Forest--at the 1st link below, and you may see a list of species
heard and/or seen during the May 2007 course--conducted for the KDFWR at Barren River Lake State Resort Park (and Mammoth Cave National
Park) May 7-10, 2007--at the 2nd link below (the other two links provide
descriptions of the songs and calls of species breeding in Kentucky [3rd link]
or of warblers breeding in or migrating through [4th link] Kentucky):
Proper identification
of birds is one of the major goals of birders and birdwatchers. Usually,
at least one field guide to birds needs to be consulted to make or to confirm
an identification of a bird. Here is a link to a page that provides
details about the various field guides available to birders living in the
eastern part of North America:
Once you have observed
and properly identified a bird, documentation
of its presence is your next obligation. Details about how to accomplish
this task may be found in many sources, including the following one:
Stedman, S. J., and J. C. Robinson. 1987. Documentation and submission of bird
records in You may view an online copy of this
article via a link at this page of the TOS website: Basic information about a sighting
of a common bird can be placed on a field card for permanent storage. More
detailed information about a sighting of a rare bird should be recorded on a
special form designed for the purpose, an example of which may be found at the
following link: A
good way to ensure that your bird
data are available to future birders and ornithologists is to archive them using
eBird.
For details about this important birding resource, click on this link:
Tennessee. Migrant 58 (3): 65-79.
Various bibliographies
related to Upper Cumberland ornithology are accessible below:
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This web site was maintained and by Stephen J. Stedman.