Got the chance to visit my friends at the Brown Family Environmental Center this morning and was happy to find good birds and other natural wonders all around me. It made me sorry I'd been away so long. I was surprised that even at 11am on a hot, humid day there were still a lot of good birds around singing away. As I tried to identify some dragons and butterflies in the garden I was distracted by a buzzy song on the hill. I had to make sure what I heard was indeed a Prairie Warbler and not just a distant Field Sparrow, Cerulean Warbler or Parula, so I hiked up there and sure enough He was singing away near the pine grove at the top of the hill (the Fern trail, upper scrubland uphill from the prairie behind the old white farm house and gardens). Also over there was a Yellow-breasted Chat and some other good stuff, like the aforementioned Cerulean Warbler (on the wooded northern hillside), Yellow-throated Warblers and a N. Parula down by the Kokosing Gap bike path. I went across Route 229 to the trails on the north side of the road, Bishop's Backbone trail, and was treated to the melodious stylings of Wood Thrush and many other birds of the old growth forest there like another Cerulean Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, Hooded Warbler and others (see below). The Wolf Run creek there has a nice bridge within earshot of another Yellow-throated Warbler and a Willow Flycatcher pair. There were young Pickerel Frogs and baby toads hopping around the bridge as well.

Fern/prairie trail Gap Trail
Yellow-throated Warbler
Cerulean Warbler
Northern Parula
Prairie Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
White-eyed Vireo
Eastern Bluebirds (all over the place)
E. Wood-Pewee 
Tree Swallows
Field Sparrow
Eastern Towhee
Song Sparrow


Bishop's Backbone Trail
Cerulean Warbler
Hooded Warbler
Yellow-throated Warbler
Scarlet Tanager
Acadian Flycatcher
Willow Flycatcher
Eastern Wood-pewee
Yellow-Billed Cuckoo
Really great Birding on the BFEC property today, glad I took the time to check the trails out. 
here is a link for the maps and info on the BFEC near Kenyon University, Gambier OH:
http://bfec.kenyon.edu/welcomeset1.htm


Good Birding 
Ben Warner





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