Local Sites Draw Bird Enthusiasts
Bird-watchers often talk about their “spark bird,” the species that hooked them. It might be a brightly colored favorite or a majestic bird of prey, but for avid birder Joe Watts, it was the common eastern towhee.
It was the first bird Watts knew how to identify, and he was proud that he could do so. A regular visitor to Alabama backyards, the towhee is a large sparrow marked by black and white feathers with warm reddish-brown sides. Eastern towhees commonly scratch in the dirt for worms and are known for their distinctive call.
“Its song is ‘drink your tea, drink your tea,’ so it’s a quintessential Southern bird,” Watts says.
Watts is a consultant on the Alabama Birding Trails, established through the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development with the Alabama Tourism Department and the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The 8 birding trails highlight the 430 bird species documented in Alabama. The trails include 280 sites — 9 in Jackson County and 7 in Marshall County.
Watts says it is amazing that the smallest birds can travel great distances, some flying from South America to the Arctic Circle during their migration. Bird-watchers, meanwhile, do not have to go far from home to see a variety of birds.
While Northeast Alabama birdwatchers regularly visit parks and wildlife management areas, you likely can observe migratory birds in your very own backyard. Watts suggests looking for them along the edges of woods where birds seek refuge as they search for food. Interest and a good pair of binoculars are all that’s needed.
“I think it’s a way to let everybody enjoy nature and get outside,” Watts says. “I love to hear the bird song. I love to see a new bird. I love to see a bird that I see every day. It’s a spark of joy.”
The All About Birds website, through the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, can help identify bird species. Cornell also provides eBird, a database of bird observations. The Alabama Birding Trails website has a link to the eBird database for each site on its trails.
Visit the Alabama Birding Trails website for specific county and site information.
Alabama Cooperative Extension System‘s Graham Farm & Nature Center
Located in Estillfork, cerulean warblers have been spotted at the nature center, eastern bluebirds nest on the property and a variety of hawks are year-round residents. Look for loggerhead shrikes hunting along fence rows.
Guntersville State Park
Considered a premier birding area for Northeast Alabama, bald eagles and waterfowl can be seen in the winter. Migration times bring warblers, vireos, tanagers and grosbeaks to the park’s woods. Great blue herons and great egrets nest on the lake’s islands.
Mud Creek Wildlife Management Area
American coots and common moorhens can be seen throughout the year along with wading birds, like great blue and green herons. The wildlife management area was the hatching site that first reintroduced bald eagles to Alabama’s Tennessee River Valley.
North Sauty Creek/Sauta Cave National Wildlife Refuge
North Sauty Creek hosts a variety of waterfowl, shorebirds and wading birds during migration times and in the winter. The nearby Sauta Cave is home to endangered gray bats. In the summer at dusk, the cave has the largest emergence of bats east of the Mississippi River. Songbirds include summer tanagers and prothonotary warblers.
Roy B. Whitaker Paint Rock River Preserve
Spring, summer and fall are the best seasons for birding at the preserve — once a working farm now owned by The Nature Conservancy. Grasslands attract grasshopper sparrows and scissor-tailed flycatchers. The woods provide nesting sites for great crested flycatchers and red-eyed vireos.
Russell Cave National Monument
Summer and scarlet tanagers, as well as yellow-billed cuckoos, can be spotted along the boardwalk and nature trails at Russell Cave, where spring and fall are the best times for bird-watching. Warblers and vireos also appear during migration times.
Skyline Wildlife Management Area
Spring brings yellow-breasted chats, field sparrows, indigo buntings and prairie warblers. Skyline is also home to the state’s only population of ruffed grouse, whose drumming might be heard during the spring.
Stevenson Town Park
Bordering Crow Creek, the park provides opportunities to see common loons, horned grebes, herons and other shorebirds. Spring, fall and winter are the best seasons for birding.