Throughout Week Fifteen things had started to heat up in terms of spring migration, but in Week Sixteen pretty much right off the bat things got Warblery, starting with the 14th as I began to work my way up towards the Nashville area. I kicked off Monday morning at the Morris Ferry Boat Ramp before heading to Prairie Chapel Road. Between the two stops I picked up a handful of new Tennessee birds including Cliff Swallow, Dark-eyed Junco, Blue-winged Teal, Wilson’s Snipe, Solitary Sandpiper, Lesser Yellowlegs, and Summer Tanager.
The next couple of stops along the Buckner Lane Fields and Peabody Road didn’t yield much, but at Rippy Ridge Road things began to heat up. Northern Parula were singing in abundance, and were joined by other warblers including Black-and-white Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Pine Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, and my first-of-year Blue-winged Warbler. The nearby Bill Russell Road brought several more Parula and a Yellow-rumped Warbler along with my first-of-year Red-eyed Vireo, and then along 3 Fork Bridge Road there was a Louisiana Waterthrush, a couple Prothonotary Warbler, and a bunch more Parula.
Eventually I made my way to West and Higgins Roads, where I tracked down my main target of a previously reported Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, my third first-of-year bird of the morning. The fourth would follow shortly after at Lewisburg Reservoir in the form of Warbling Vireo, and while there I also picked up a Swamp Sparrow, Green Heron, and an early Baltimore Oriole.
At the Mount Pleasant Wastewater Treatment Ponds I spotted a Spotted Sandpiper, and at Campbell Lake I had my first-of-year Orchard Oriole. Finally I made my way to Big East Fork Road where I hoped to track down a Whip-poor-will. There hadn’t been any reported there yet this year but it has been one of the more reliable locations in the Nashville area in the past few years and it didn’t seem like many people – if any – had tried for them yet this year. Before it got dark out I heard a different fantastic bird – my first-of-year Scarlet Tanager, and when darkness finally set in I heard another bird that wasn’t my target: a Chuck-will’s-widow. Chuck-will’s are not particularly common in the Nashville area and this was only the second one I’ve ever heard, and thinking it sounded like it was a ways into the woods I walked to the wood line to get a better recording of it – only to discover it was actually right on the edge of the woods and flushed as I approached, making it my first ever seen Chuck-will’s! A few minutes later and a couple miles farther north I heard the distinctive call of an Eastern Whip-poor-will, giving me eight first-of-year birds on the day! With that I called it a day and made my way to a nearby Cracker Barrel to spend the night.
The next morning I woke fairly early and headed over to Timberland Park, though upon arriving I learned the park didn’t open until 8am so I made my way to the nearby Natchez Trail Overlook, there hearing a Wood Thrush and a Red-headed Woodpecker. As 8am neared I headed back to Timberland and got started on a nice walk for the morning, quickly hearing a Hooded Warbler, one of my two main targets for the park along with Cerulean Warbler, which it was probably just a bit too early for. I did, however, hear a warbler which I struggled with the ID on for a little before deciding upon, coincidentally given my location, a Nashville Warbler, and while listening to that Nashville heard a Worm-eating Warbler – a bird far more common in this area than back home in Michigan but still a great pick up! All three of those warblers were first-of-year birds for me, and after picking them up I made my way to one of the nearby Nashville Metroparks, Warner Park – specifically the Nature Center.
I spent a couple hours at the Nature Center’s public bird banding station, hanging out with local birders Jenna Atma and Graham Gerdeman along with a handful of others. Eventually I made my way to Radnor Lake State Park for an afternoon walk, racking up a checklist with ten species of warblers and new-for-Tennessee birds in the form of Bald Eagle and Wood Duck.
On Wednesday morning I headed to the east side of Nashville to meet back up with Jenna at another of the Nashville Metroparks, Shelby Bottoms. We started our day at the Nature Preserve Trails, where among the 45 species we racked up were our targeted American Bittern and a relatively early and fantastically cooperative Yellow-billed Cuckoo. We then made our way to the other side of the park to the Greenway, where there was an assortment of shorebirds, a Great Egret, a Pied-billed Grebe, and a solid variety of other birds. Once we wrapped up at the Greenway I parted ways with Jenna and spent the rest of the day working on my laptop before beginning the drive towards the southeast corner of the state to track down one of my last remaining Lifer possibilities east of the Mississippi: Swainson’s Warbler.
On Thursday morning I started my day near Chattanooga, TN at the Bauxite Road Trail, where shortly after beginning my walk I heard a singing Kentucky Warbler, a first-of-year bird which was shortly followed by another first-of-year in the form of Tennessee Warbler as well as a first-for-Tennessee Orange-crowned Warbler. While those three were a fantastic trio, they paled in comparison to the bird that came next: Swainson’s Warbler. At first I heard the bird and then, as I followed the sound, I bumped into four other birders who had just gotten eyes on the singing individual in question, and with their assistance soon did as well. Before leaving Bauxite I heard my first-of-year Great Crested Flycatcher, and one of those locals gave me the advice of heading to the nearby Standifer Gap Marsh, where I picked up Sora, Savannah Sparrow, and Fish Crow for my Tennessee list.
While having originally planned on remaining in the state for another day, I made the decision to move on to North Carolina. Unfortunately, due to the Smoky Mountains, the most direct route to North Carolina was a rather roundabout one, heading through Knoxville in northeast Tennessee before following the highway down to into North Carolina. Along this drive I stopped at the Kyker Bottoms Refuge, closing out my time in Tennessee with a few new additions including Gadwall, Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck, and my first-of-year Yellow-breasted Chat.
On the 18th I got started on birding North Carolina, kicking off my time in the state at the Lake Julian Park. There, in addition to a smatter of domestics, I tallied 38 species including Spotted Sandpiper, Belted Kingfisher, Ring-billed Gull, Mallard, American Coot, and a smattering of other species. Then, at the North Mills River Recreation Area, I heard several singing Blackburnian Warbler – a first-of-year and one of my favorite birds – along with Black-throated Green Warbler, Northern Parula, Hooded Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Louisiana Waterthrush, and Ovenbird.
At the Mills River Wastewater Treatment Ponds I had a Ring-necked Duck and some Lesser Scaup, and added Worm-eating Warbler and Yellow-throated Vireo at the Dittmer-Watts Nature Trail Park. Finally I ended my day with an incomplete triangular loop formed by Mountain Range Road, South Wilson Road, and South Dalton Road – picking up Prairie Warbler while it was still light out and then Chuck-will’s-widow and Eastern Whip-poor-will as it got dark out.
On the morning of Saturday the 19th I met Will Keller of Real Birding Media for a day of birding around the Charlotte area. After meeting at Will’s apartment we made our way to Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge, where we got started birding along the Wildlife Drive. Our day got off to a great start with my first-of-year Blue Grosbeak, followed subsequently by some great birds including Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, Solitary Sandpiper, a bunch of Red-headed Woodpecker, a Scarlet Tanager, a Little Blue Heron, and a good assortment of warblers.
After finishing up the drive we made our way to another portion of the refuge, where I spotted a small group of Northern Bobwhite that flew across the road in front of the car while Will was behind the car, unfortunately missing the birds. Eventually we parked and went for about a mile-and-a-half hike along a dirt road around some fields – fields which were more dry than Will had expected them to be and unfortunately didn’t hold any ducks or shorebirds aside from a couple of Pectoral Sandpiper. When we made it to the river we heard a singing Swainson’s Warbler, and from there we bushwhacked our way back through some thick brush, dense poison ivy, and over a creek to get back to the car with just a few hundred feet of hiking rather than backtracking the entire distance.
After leaving Pee Dee we headed back to the Charlotte area, where at the Walker’s Ferry Road Cove we tracked down a continuing locally-rare Purple Gallinule and heard and saw a couple Cape May Warbler. With the midday heat setting in we then decided to take a couple hour break and headed back to Will’s apartment, where we heard a Yellow-breasted Chat and spent some time sharing various birding stories. Eventually we decided to get back to birding and made our way to the nearby Latta Park, a regular patch of Will’s and a pretty nice, productive wooded urban park. There we spotted an Orange-crowned Warbler and a Northern Waterthrush along with a variety of other birds before heading back to Will’s place for dinner. I totally forgot to get a pic with Will, though Will recorded an episode for Real Birding covering our birding for the day, which can be found here.
On Sunday morning Will and I headed south to the Six Mile Creek Greenway to wrap up my time in North Carolina with a good morning of birding that didn’t bring much in the way of new North Carolina birds aside from a Blue-headed Vireo. After our time at the greenway we parted ways and I headed on into South Carolina, kicking off my time in the last of my remaining states in the southern half of the US Landsford Canal State Historic Site. There was a solid assortment of birds along the trails there, including both Summer Tanager and Scarlet Tanager, a ton of Prothonotary Warbler as well as ten other warbler species, all four of the “expected” vireo species in Red-eyed Vireo, Blue-headed Vireo, Yellow-throated Vireo, and White-eyed Vireo.
I ended my first day in South Carolina at Sesquicentennial State Park, where after picking up Worm-eating Warbler and Black-throated Blue Warbler I ended the day with a whopping FIVE Chuck-will’s-widow heard calling from a single spot! This brought me to 71 species to end my first day in South Carolina, giving my eBird map a nice filled-in look with there not being any more southern states that I haven’t birded in yet! Throughout the early parts of next week I will wrap up my birding in South Carolina, propelling it past 100 as I bird my way up the coast before heading back into and through North Carolina and into Virginia as I continue to follow migration up the coast.
Happy Birding!
eBird Trip Summary:
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Follow me on my journey to see 100 species in every Lower-48 State during 2025, experience some of the incredible places and events in American birding, and meet and bird with as many local birders as possible along the way.
Posts will be made every Wednesday (I will try to have them out by 5pm, but situationally they might be a bit later) and will cover the previous Monday through Sunday. Additional posts will be made periodically with no set schedule.
