In Migration

With the temperature changing and the season shifting, animal species are preparing for the cold. Tom Howe, one of the experts who leads birding expeditions at Blackberry Farm, shared a little about a few of the migratory bird species that stand out to him when curious bird lovers ask about who’s making the journey south.

The Louisiana Waterthrush lives along Hesse Creek at Blackberry Farm, feeding on aquatic invertebrates and is one of the first resident birds to migrate south. It is usually gone by the end of July, a much earlier start than people may expect when they think about birds flying out for the Winter.

Our famous Indigo Buntings that nest here are gone before the end of October. Interesting fact: we have four different blue species that nest in Blackberry Farm’s area, but none of them have blue pigment in their feathers! They only look blue (indigo) because of the way the sunlight is refracted by their feathers’ structure. If you ground up a “blue” feather, it wouldn’t look blue, but brown.

The Broad-Winged Hawk is a resident bird that leaves in the middle of September for Central and South America. All of this species migrates at the same time throughout eastern North America. When we get just the right weather and winds, there are a couple of days in middle September when Blackberry guests and people in the area might see hundreds of these hawks migrating along Chilhowee Mountain.

Whippoorwills can be heard in the late evenings at our guest houses in the woods. They were one of Sam Bealls favorite birds. They are gone by the end of September.

Hummingbirds are plentiful in the Garden during the late Summer. They are usually gone by the end of September when they fly to the gulf coast, fatten up, then fly all the way across the Gulf of Mexico without stopping – unless they happen upon a boat or an oil rig where they can stop and rest for a moment.

Wood Thrushes can be heard singing in our woods in Summer, but they leave by the middle of October. They have very beautiful, yet unusual songs, due to the fact that they have a separate voice box on each windpipe. They can sing a duet of different notes simultaneously. This gives their song an ethereal quality unmatched in the bird world.