Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society

Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society The Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society was organized in 1924 to promote the enjoyment, scientific study, and conservation of birds.

KTOS welcomes all who have interest in enjoying, learning about, and conserving Tennessee's native birds. For information on upcoming field trips and programs, please visit our web site at http://www.knoxbirds.org

03/24/2026

When we're stuck in front of the computer for too long our bird brains go weird places.

03/23/2026

Get those feeders out, Tennessee Valley! Hummingbirds are migrating north as we head into Spring. The most recent local sighting reported of a ruby-throated hummingbird was in Ringgold on Wednesday.

TIPS

Mix 1 part white granulated sugar with 4 parts water, boiling it briefly to dissolve and letting it cool completely before filling the feeder. Please do NOT use food coloring as it is unnecessary and potentially harmful to hummingbirds. Choose feeders with red parts instead.

Clean feeders 2 to 3 times a week using a 1:1 mixture of warm water and vinegar or mild soap. Replace nectar before it becomes cloudy or spoils. In hot weather, change it more frequently.

Hang feeders in the shade to prevent rapid spoilage and in high-visibility areas. Place feeders 20 to 25 feet apart to reduce territorial fighting.

Hummingbirds eat insects and spiders for protein, so do NOT use pesticides as these eliminate their natural food source.

03/23/2026

Your yard has a security system. Right now, at least four species in your backyard are monitoring for predators — and they're all listening to each other.

Every bird and mammal within earshot is eavesdropping on alarm calls from species they've never interacted with, decoding threat level, size, and direction from sounds they didn't make.

The Carolina Chickadee is the encoder. Her signature chick-a-dee-dee-dee call isn't just a name — it's a data transmission. She adds more dee notes based on how dangerous the predator is. A large slow-moving hawk gets two or three dees. A small fast owl that can actually catch a chickadee gets ten or more. Every bird within range decodes this instantly. Nuthatches, titmice, warblers, and sparrows all adjust their behavior based on the number of dees in a call they didn't make.

The Blue Jay is the perimeter alarm. She can mimic the scream of a red-tailed hawk well enough to trigger a freeze response in every small bird nearby. She uses it when she spots a real threat — a cat, a Cooper's Hawk, a snake near a nest. The yard goes silent almost instantly. Every feeder empties. Every ground bird freezes.

The Eastern Chipmunk covers the ground. He produces two completely different alarm calls depending on threat type. A rapid high-pitched chipping signals a ground predator — cat, snake, weasel. A long trill signals an aerial threat — hawk overhead. Ground-feeding birds, rabbits, and other chipmunks respond to the correct call without looking up to verify. The chipmunk already told them where the danger is.

The American Crow runs the response team. Crows don't just warn — they attack. When one crow spots a hawk, owl, or cat, she gives a specific mobbing call that recruits every crow within earshot. They converge, dive-bomb, and harass the predator until it leaves. They also remember individual predator faces — including human faces — and pass that information to crows who never saw the original encounter.

These four systems run simultaneously all day. The chickadee broadcasts threat level. The jay triggers lockdown. The chipmunk identifies ground versus sky. The crows handle enforcement. Every other species in your yard — robins, sparrows, cardinals, rabbits — benefits from this network without producing a single alarm call of their own.

🐦 How to hear the security system:

- Watch your feeders when a cat walks through the yard. The jay screams, every bird vanishes, and the feeders stay empty for minutes. That silence is the system working

- Listen for the chickadee's dee count. A relaxed chick-a-dee-dee means low alert. A rapid string of six or more dees means something small and dangerous is nearby — look for a small owl or a shrike

- When you hear a chipmunk chipping from the ground, check what direction he's facing. He's staring directly at the threat. His body is a compass needle pointing at danger

- If several crows suddenly converge on one tree screaming, look in that tree. There's almost certainly a hawk or owl sitting there trying to wait them out

The network is already running. Step outside. Wait for the first alarm. Follow it 🌿

03/23/2026

The robin in your yard isn't raising one family. She's running a production line.

She builds the first nest in March or April. Five to seven days of construction — two hundred to three hundred fifty trips for grass, mud, and lining. She lays three to five eggs. Incubates for twelve to fourteen days. Both parents feed the chicks for thirteen days. The chicks fledge.

Then she builds a second nest.

Not in the same cup — parasites build up in the lining during the first brood. She starts a new nest, sometimes in the same tree, sometimes in a different one, sometimes directly on top of the old one. She lays three to five more eggs. Incubates again. Feeds again.

Then she builds a third.

In the southern United States, some pairs attempt a fourth. The breeding season runs from April through July — roughly one hundred and twenty days. Each cycle takes about thirty-five days: nest-building, egg-laying, incubation, and nestling period. Three cycles fit perfectly.

The male splits his duties. While she's incubating the second clutch, he's still feeding fledglings from the first. He does this alone — following them on the ground, delivering insects, teaching them to forage — while she sits on new eggs thirty feet away in a different tree.

By August, one pair of robins may have produced nine to fifteen eggs across three nests. Not all will hatch. Not all chicks will fledge. Not all fledglings will survive. But the math is relentless because it has to be — the average robin lives just two years. She breeds as if every season is her last. Because statistically, it is.

🌿 This month:

- A robin carrying mud in her bill is building. A robin carrying food is feeding chicks. Both can be happening in the same yard simultaneously — different broods, different stages
- If you find an empty robin nest in June, check the same tree for a new one — she may have stacked it directly on top
- Each chick eats roughly fourteen feet of earthworms during its thirteen-day nest life

One robin. Three nests. The production line started this week. 🌿

03/23/2026

Next week is the biggest raptor migration passage of the year. And it happens directly over your commute.

Between March 28 and April 10, the Broad-winged Hawk migration reaches its annual peak along the Appalachian Ridge system and the Atlantic Coast flyway. On peak days at major hawk watch sites, counters record 10,000-30,000 raptors in a single afternoon. The one-day record at Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania: 21,488 Broad-winged Hawks on September 14, 2006 (fall migration). The spring record: 11,247 in a single day.

The spring passage is earlier and more compressed than fall. 80% of the annual Broad-winged Hawk migration passes through the eastern US in a 14-day window centered on early April. That window opens THIS WEEKEND.

WHAT TO EXPECT:

THE KETTLES: Broad-winged Hawks are the ONLY eastern raptor that migrates in flocks. They stack into thermal columns — spiraling upward in a tight spiral, then gliding downhill to the next thermal. A single kettle can contain 200-5,000 birds at altitudes from 500 to 6,000 feet. At 6,000 feet, they're visible as specks. At 1,000 feet, you can see individual wing shapes. At 500 feet — which happens when thermals are weak — they're close enough to hear their wing beats.

THE MIX: Broad-wingeds dominate (85-90% of the count), but riding with them: Sharp-shinned Hawks, Cooper's Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, Red-shouldered Hawks, Ospreys, and occasional Bald Eagles. Each species has a distinctive flight shape — learning 3-4 shapes lets you identify species from half a mile:
- Broad-winged: compact, stubby wings, short tail. Looks like a flying barrel.
- Sharp-shinned: tiny, flap-flap-glide rhythm, long tail.
- Cooper's: larger than sharp-shin, slower wingbeats, rounder tail tip.
- Red-tailed: large, broad wings, obvious dark belly band, rufous tail.

HOW TO SEE THEM (anywhere in the eastern US):
1. Pick a day with light SW wind and puffy cumulus clouds (cumulus = thermals = hawks).
2. Find a south-facing hilltop, rooftop, or open field between 11 AM and 3 PM.
3. Face south-southwest. The hawks travel NE, riding thermals that develop over south-facing slopes.
4. Scan the base of cumulus clouds — kettles form where warm air rises. One speck becomes 50 in 5 minutes.
5. Bring binoculars. The big kettles are visible to the naked eye, but individual species ID requires 8-10× magnification.

Peak days: Look for the first warm day after a cold front passes — the high pressure behind a cold front produces the clear, sunny, thermal-rich conditions that generate the biggest kettle days. A warm day after 2-3 cool days = go outside at noon.

You drive under this migration every spring. The hawks have been passing over your commute since March. You just never looked up.

Next week, look up.

03/22/2026

Some beings don’t just see you… they remember you.
‎Crows aren’t just birds passing through the sky—they watch, they learn, they recognize. Faces, patterns, energy.
‎Science says they can identify humans and even create distinct calls for different people.
‎But maybe it goes deeper than that.
‎Ever noticed a crow that keeps coming back?
‎Perching nearby. Watching a little longer than usual.
‎Maybe it’s not curiosity.
‎Maybe it’s recognition.
‎So next time one crosses your path, don’t rush past it.
‎Pause. Acknowledge it. Speak gently—like it already knows your name.
‎Because in a world that forgets quickly…
‎some eyes never do.
‎

03/22/2026

The mud. It's on your boots, your car mat, your dog's belly, your kid's jeans, and every floor in your house.

You hate mud season. Everything is brown and wet and nothing stays clean for ten minutes.

Your yard needs every ounce of it.

Mud means the frost line has retreated below the root zone. The soil that was locked solid since November is now porous enough for water to move through it. Every organism that hibernated underground is pushing upward through softened ground. Every root system is reactivating. Every seed that landed last fall is finally able to germinate.

The earthworms you see on the sidewalk after rain are moving through mud. The tunnels they dig aerate the soil. The castings they leave behind are one of the richest natural fertilizers available — packed with the nutrients your garden needs most.

The robins standing on every muddy patch are hunting worms, but they're also gathering building material. Robin nests have a structural layer of mud — each nest requires hundreds of trips to a mud source. No mud, no nests.

Barn Swallows need it even more. Over a thousand individual mud pellets per nest, carried one beak-load at a time. Every swallow nest in your neighborhood starts as a puddle on your driveway.

Mud season is construction season.

🌿 What the mud is doing for your yard:

- A muddy puddle that hasn't dried up is a building supply depot — robins, phoebes, and barn swallows all need wet mud within flying distance of the nest site. Leaving a low spot in your driveway or yard undrained through April helps every mud-nesting bird on your block
- The worm castings on your lawn and garden surface after rain are free fertilizer — don't rake them away. They break down into the soil and feed the root zone directly
- Mud on bare garden beds means the soil is open and workable. Seeds sown now reach moisture they couldn't touch two weeks ago
- The mess on your boots tracks organic material onto hard surfaces where it dries and blows away — but in the yard it stays where it lands and becomes part of the topsoil

The brown mess you're scraping off your boots is the building material for every nest, the highway for every worm, and the signal that the frozen world is open for business again.

It'll dry. They can't wait for it to 🌿

03/22/2026

A woodpecker’s holes look like damage, but they are lifelines carved into bark.

But the part most people miss is who shows up after the drilling stops.

When cold weather shuts down nectar and insects become scarce, woodpeckers create tidy rows of sap wells that stay active for days or weeks. They revisit them, keeping the flow steady when other food sources disappear.

Hummingbirds rely on these wells during early spring, drinking the sap and feeding on the insects it attracts. Warblers, kinglets, and other small birds follow the same pattern. What looks like a single bird’s work becomes a shared resource.

Healthy trees can handle it. The wells are shallow and spaced, and most seal over naturally, leaving faint scars that record seasons of stress. The tree lives on, and the ecosystem benefits from what it provided.

In lean seasons, survival depends on timing and access.

What looks like damage is often the start of everything else.

03/22/2026

Every puddle on your street has a robin standing in it this morning. Sidewalk puddles. Driveway runoff. The low spot in your lawn that never drains right.

They're not drinking. They're bathing. And they need it more than food right now.

A robin baths by standing in shallow water — 1 to 2 inches deep — and plunging its chest in while flicking its wings rapidly. The motion drives water between the feather layers, reaching the base where parasites live. Feather lice, mites, and hippoboscid flies all colonize the downy underlayer next to the skin. The bath flushes them out. One bath dislodges 60-80% of surface parasites.

After the bath, she flies to a branch and preens. Preening isn't grooming — it's engineering. She draws each flight feather through her beak, realigning the tiny hooked barbules that zip the feather vane together like Velcro. A single flight feather has 600-900 barbs, each with hundreds of barbules. If the barbules separate, the feather loses its aerodynamic seal. Preening rezips them. One bath-and-preen session restores full flight efficiency.

She also distributes preen oil from the uropygial gland at the base of her tail. The oil waterproofs the feathers and contains antimicrobial compounds that suppress fungal growth. Without this oil, her feathers would absorb water, double her flight weight, and ground her in the next rain.

The puddle isn't optional. It's maintenance. She needs to bathe every 1-2 days in spring to maintain the equipment that keeps her alive — flight feathers for escaping hawks, insulating down for cold nights, and a parasite load low enough that she can incubate eggs without infesting her nest.

Every puddle on your street this morning is an open-air maintenance bay.

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Knoxville, TN
37902

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