JAMESVILLE – A birdwatching walk took place at Clark Reservation State Park on Sunday, April 21 as part of the Jamesville site’s Earth Day celebration that afternoon.
During that springtime stroll led by members of Onondaga Audubon, the group of walkers—several of them equipped with trail notebooks and binoculars—were encouraged to “say something if they see something.” Everyone also kept their ears open to listen for different birds’ calls, some relying on the more avid birders to precisely identify what species they were hearing.
Dori Joiner, the president of that National Audubon Society chapter for Central New York and the Eastern Lake Ontario basin, was a leader of the walk alongside Diane Emord, a longstanding member of the non-profit local chapter who has served in the past as its secretary, treasurer and board member.
The two said the ability to spot a bird from afar and correctly identify it either on sight or by its call takes time, practice and some training tips from experts.
“You start with walks like this,” Emord said. “If you hear one bird call on a walk and you remember it, that’s progress.”
She advised putting yourself in the moment as you see or hear a bird to familiarize yourself with the sound or the look of the species and better remember those details for the next time. She said electronic mobile apps like Merlin Bird ID, which was made by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, can help to build birding knowledge and keep track of the species one encounters.
With Merlin, which Emord recommended especially for beginners, any birdwatcher can go step by step to log where they saw a particular bird, roughly how big it was, its main colors from what someone can tell, and what it was doing at the time of the sighting. The app then supplies a list of possible choices for the exact type of bird it was along with matching pictures, and it also has a sound identification feature that, with the push of a button, initiates a savable recording of one’s surroundings to pick up a bird’s song or call.
Over the course of the approximately hour-long walk at Clark Reservation that Sunday, the group took notice of turkey vultures hovering overhead as well as American robins, pigeons, Canada geese by the lake, and a dark-eyed junco. At one point toward the end as hail began to lightly fall, there were two pileated woodpeckers that poked their heads out, let out their chirps, and flew by in the trees above—that moment serving as a real crowdpleaser.
By the parking lot where the walk ended, one person saw golden-crowned kinglets, a tiny migratory bird described as “hyperactive.”
Though the Onondaga Audubon members wished they had seen more birds that cold afternoon, mentioning that it was a slimmer amount than they’ve come across on other walks, they said the experience invites people to come back to the state park later in the spring when more birds will be migrating back to the local area, or else a different time of day closer to sunset or sunrise when birds are known to be more active.
“You don’t have to be a great birder either,” Joiner said. “You don’t have to be an expert and you don’t have to put a name on everything you see. You just have to go out and enjoy nature and look around you and see these beautiful birds. That’s gonna get you excited and make you wanna do more.”
The mission of Onondaga Audubon is to encourage the conservation of native birds and wildlife in the region. Joiner said she and the rest of the members want to make people more cognizant of the fact that they’re sharing the planet with animals like birds and that humans can be a voice for these species as their numbers dwindle.
“Birds are just kind of a window to the natural world, because they’re everywhere and they’re visible,” Emord said. “When the birding is slow, people start looking at the other things that are there, and they just get more of an awareness of the world around them.”
The birding walk occurred at the same time as Clark Reservation’s second annual Earth Day Hike, said to be more challenging terrain-wise.
The event on April 21 also had multiple organizations tabling, such as Habitat Gardening of CNY, FORCES (Friends of Recreation, Conservation and Environmental Stewardship), NYS Parks, and the DeWitt Advisory Conservation Commission in conjunction with Climate Change Awareness & Action.
Angela Weiler, the chair of the Friends of Clark Reservation, said the turnout that afternoon exceeded her expectations considering the less-than-ideal weather, though she said the wind held off for the most part and it was still a “manageable” amount of people in attendance, not an overwhelming number.
The park is also holding “I Love My Park Day” this Saturday, May 4 from 10 a.m. to noon as part of the yearly statewide campaign to attract volunteers to beautify New York State parks, historic sites and public lands. With snacks and tools provided, that event at Clark will involve getting the park in shape for the coming season by way of invasive plant removal, native garden maintenance, trash pickup, stone dust layering and a refurbishment of the park’s volleyball court behind the large pavilion.
Onondaga Audubon additionally holds events like book club meetings, moth observations and its fund-raising Spring Birdathon, and its members make field trips to other spots like Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, Seneca Meadows Wetlands Preserve and the Camillus Forest Unique Area.
For more information, visit OnondagaAudubon.com or the local chapter’s Facebook page.