Wednesday, May 21: Introduction

4:00 pm - Check in at your respective lodge. If you can arrive earlier, you can take advantage of the Appalachian Forest Museum’s hiking trails and engaging Forest murals. 

5:30 pm - Dinner on the Deck Join us for a picnic-style dinner on the deck of the Appalachian Forest Museum. Please bring your own meal and service settings. This will be a great opportunity to meet your leaders, course assistants, and fellow colleagues as we officially begin our weekend. 

6:30 pm - Introduction at the Appalachian Forest Museum and Evening Program: Bird Habitats
Join us for a program to learn how birds do not exist in a vacuum but in the cradle of living ecosystems. People most quickly learn about their birds when they can associate them with the habitat in which they are found. Once you learn your bird calls, the calls will be forever embedded in your memory with the scents and sights of their associated native plant community. After completing a pre-course bird song quiz, we will discuss the main habitats we will focus on during this course. To prepare for the following day, we will particularly focus on birds that live in the forest. 

Thursday, May 22: Birds of the Deep Forest and Riverine Habitats

Optional: Enjoy the Dawn Chorus On Your own. During this course, we tend not to go birding early in the morning. Because the density of bird sounds is so entangled and loud, it is probably the worst time for students to single out a bird call and learn or recognize it. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek out an early-morning experience. When the sun starts to lighten the sky, the bird chorus is as close to heaven as you can get in Ohio with the vireos, flycatchers, wood thrush, and all of the others sounding off at the same time. 

7:30 am - Fort Hill – Bird Songs of the Deep Forest. Please eat breakfast before we depart for the day. We will meet as a group to depart for the largest, oldest grandest contiguous forest in all of southern Ohio—the 1400-acre Fort Hill, managed by the Arc on behalf of the Ohio Historical Society. Here you will learn the sounds of quintessential summer – the grosbeaks, vireos, flycatchers, and warblers of what was once Ohio’s dominant ecosystem  – the mature deciduous forest with its high closed canopy and dimly lit forest floor. Fort Hill also has another claim to fame – its 2000-year-old Native American Earthworks.

12:00 - 2:30 pm - Break For Lunch 

2:30 pm - Cliff Run Preserve – Bird Songs of Riparian Corridors and Wetlands.

Cliff Run and its tributary, Lewis Family Gorge, shelter over one-half mile of a vertical-sided gorge that drains into Paint Creek Reservoir a short distance outside the preserve’s boundaries. This newly completed trail will soon be open to the public and promises to be one of the most cherished of all the Arc’s trails. The trail offers diverse experiences, including walking on a boardwalk that crosses a small lake that shelters an active beaver colony.  At Cliff Run, we will encounter a wide array of birds that will allow us to review forest birds, birds that prefer nesting alongside pristine waterways including Louisiana waterthrushes and northern rough-rough wing swallows, as well water-loving herons that make use of the beaver-enhanced lake. 

5:00 pm - Break For Dinner

7:00 pm - Evening Program at the Appalachian Forest Museum: Bird Songs of the Grasslands. Prior to Native American and European agriculture in Ohio, Ohio boasted open native grasslands – often referred to today as prairies –  which were inhabited by a host of interesting bird species. Most of these birds have managed to adapt with various degrees of success and failure to our abandoned farm fields, pastures, and small prairie remnants; many are now rare due to reduced habitat. The songs of grassland birds are much different in ambiance than the songs of the forest. Once you learn them you will find a “fourth” dimension added to your grassland outings. Once familiar, these songs are sometimes so beautiful they will make your heart ache as you pay witness to the earth’s songs of sunlight and wind.

Friday, May 23: Grasslands & Meadows in AM, Birds on the “Edge” in the PM

7:30 am - Seip Earthworks – Our First Introduction to Grassland Birds. We will depart for Seip Earthworks, a 2000-year-old Native American earthwork complex just east of Bainbridge, roughly 8 miles away. Seip Mound contains large expanses of post-agricultural fields between Highway 50 and Paint Creek. For unknown reasons, these fields are some of the richest in our region due to their high diversity of grassland birds, some of which are quite rare. Enjoy the whistles of meadowlarks, and insect-like calls of Henslow’s and grasshopper sparrows.

12:00 pm - Break For Lunch – Take time to rest and re-energize. Sitting on the back deck at the Appalachian Forest Museum is a great place to relax and view the birds foraging in the treetops beside the deck. 

3:00 pm - Afternoon Program at the Appalachian Forest Museum: Birds on the Forest Edges. Learn the five key species of our final habitat type of the workshop. Certain birds thrive where grasslands meet a forest as young trees start building habitats into meadows. Many of the edge birds have both beautiful songs and colors. One of the gifts of knowing birds' songs is that it’s more likely to see them too. The brilliance of the indigo bunting’s plumage is certainly one of those cases. 

4:00 pm - Break For Dinner 

6:00 pm - God’s Country – Bird Songs of Forest Edges and Early Succession Ecosystems. As the summer heat of midday begins to decline, the birds become active again and often resume their singing. God's Country is a mosaic of large open meadows, forest edges, and closed-canopy riparian forest lining the lush corridor of the Rocky Fork Gorge. Listen for towhees scratching in the leaf litter and indigo buntings in the treetops.

Saturday, May 24: Review of All Habitats

7:30 am - Kamelands – Review of all Habitats. We will depart for Kamelands, a loop trail at the Highlands Nature Sanctuary threading its way along cedar-clad old fields, and narrow corridors of deep forest that line the Rocky Fork Gorge. The old field, edges, and deep forest habitats of the Kamelands Trails will allow us to review everything we have learned this week. 

12:00 pm - Break For Lunch

4:00 pm - Ridgeview Farm – Birds Songs Amidst Human Influenced Habitats. As the sun inches back toward the horizon, we will explore the open grasslands of Ridgeview Farm, a region of the Highlands Nature Sanctuary that has been out of agriculture for over 25 years.  As an example of a recovering farm, it an excellent place to learn about birds common to this kind of habitat. We will see bluebirds and tree swallows claiming their nest boxes, yellow-breasted chats singing in the fencerows, and sometimes even cerulean and parula warblers in the swamp woods.

7:30 pm - Dinner at Ridgeview Farm We will gather for dinner at Nancy Stranahan’s and Brent Charette’s home at Ridgeview, where you will be served a warm country dinner. Gluten-free and vegan preferences will be accommodated.

Sunday, May 25: Conclusion

9:00 am - Appalachian Forest Museum: Informal Review. Join your assigned small group to review what you have learned. Along with your designated partners, you will take a walk along the lovely Valley of the Ancients and Etawah Woods trails and practice recognizing the songs of the birds that you hear, encouraged by the mentorship of your newly established friends.

10:30 am - Bird Song Quiz. This is it!! Now you will establish for yourself just how much you’ve learned. We guarantee you that you will be amazed at your progress and the breadth of new levels of skill.

Graduation & Certificates