Lawrence Bird Alliance

06/06/2026

Two birding activities today! Had an easy Birdability walk through Burcham Park this morning. We will be at the How-To Fest at the library until 1pm. Check out a birding backpack!

06/02/2026

June brings three great birding field trips in which to partake! First up is a trip to Burcham Park where we expect a variety of warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and swallows. Next is a trip to Clinton Lake Overlook Park where our focus will be the Painted Bunting. Finally, join us for a waterfowl focused trip to Lone Star Lake, with an optional trek through the Globe Prairie Area. At the Prairie, we hope to find meadowlarks, Horned Larks, Grasshopper and possibly Henslow’s Sparrows and of course Upland Sandpipers. We hope you can join us!

Burcham Park Field Trip: https://www.facebook.com/share/1GRQKR8BKC/
Clinton Lake Field Trip: https://www.facebook.com/share/1EbtFpCmXK/
Lone Star Lake Field Trip: https://www.facebook.com/share/1AzokrcEPr/nm

06/02/2026

Thank you Dianna Krejsa and KU Natural History Museum for the behinds-the-scenes tour of the mammalogy collection! We learned a lot!

05/24/2026

Want some native plants? 10am - noon today May 24 help us dig up the escaping ones around Hobbs Park garden and take them home! 10th and Delaware. Bring a box or bucket for them.

05/21/2026

FIELD TRIP RECAP: Our field trip this evening (May 20) started at Rice Woods at 8:30 pm. It was heavily overcast and so the birds had pretty much gone to bed by 8:30. Walking up the hill in E 1750 we heard pewee, Acadian Flycatcher, Summer Tanager, and N. Cardinal. We could hear a single Chuck-will's-widow way off in the distance and more than 1/2 way up the hill. We walked only a tenth of a mile up the hill, played a tape but no response.

We moved to the southernmost pull off to a campground at the lake. We heard Chucks even before arriving at the pull off. We parked in a big circle (we had 26 in the group) and walked a short distance on the trail past the posts. We could hear at least 4 Chuck-will's-widow immediately. They had no interest in responding to our tape. We could also hear a Whip-poor-will off in the distance but it was overshadowed by the louder Chucks. We kept playing the Whip song and one of two responded by coming closer. At one point it was probably 50-60 yd from us. We tried to make sure everyone heard more species and dispersed by 9:30 pm. Thanks to everyone that attended.

Our next field trip will be our annual "Birdability" field trip at Burcham Park. We will meet at 9:00 am Saturday June 6th at the parking lot closest to the river. Hope you can join us.

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05/15/2026

LBA is having a volunteer day for cleaning up our Hobbs Park native garden on Sunday, May 24 from 10:00am-12:00. The garden provides plants for birds and pollinators. We will provide tools and gloves. Volunteers are encouraged to bring water, and their own gloves and tools if they have any. This is in collaboration with Native Lands Restoration Collaborative, from a generous grant from Grassland Heritage Foundation. Come enjoy community with us!

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05/12/2026

Another great field trip. We also had a great turn out with 34 people and 50+ species. Let’s start with several fly-bys like Chimney Swift, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Great Blue Heron, Red-shouldered Hawk, American Crow, Turkey Vulture. One of the most common birds today was Red-eyed Vireo with a number of Warbling Vireos as well and 1-2 Yellow-throated Vireos. We had 4 flycatchers with pewee, phoebe, Least, and Great-crested Flycatcher. Gnatcatchers were also common and several Carolina Wren and a single House Wren and Ruby-crowned Kinglet were seen. Swainson and Wood Thrush were present along with 3 sparrows still present: Field, White-throat, and Lincoln.

Possibly the two best birds were a very cooperative Barred Owl that sat on a limb about 100 ft out for about 15 minutes and then flew up half that distance and started calling. In the process a second came in to observe. Over head was also a relatively cooperative Summer Tanager.

We saw or heard 12 warbler species. Equally abundant were Tennessee, Nashville, Yellow, and N. Parula. More unusual were Blackpoll, Black-and-white, Yellow-rump, Wilson’s, Kentucky (very accommodating), American Redstart, Louisiana Waterthrush, and Orange-crowned.

We have another great field trip planned for next Saturday (16th) at the southwest parking lot at the wetlands. We will start out right underneath the new Bald Eagle nest but now that the leaves are out it is hard to see the nest, not to mention the chicks inside the nest. Hope you can join us for everything else we can see.

Photo taken on a different day, but very similar to the day's experience.