Introduction to this Field Guide
Year after year, the Green River College Biology Club would take to the woods to learn a little more about life and immerse ourself in the ecosystem. One fateful year, Mark Vernon (ESOL Professor) told us of the Wilson’s warbler (p. 103) and how it was just arriving. We walked out to the junction at the top of Katy’s trail and there it was. This was a magical moment for most of the students because number 1, they had never seen such a striking bird, and number 2, they were surprised it could be predictably found.
Mark continued to reveal his love of birds by showing us the years of journaling he had accomplished. Each journal had dates, bird names, places, habitats, counts and was completely color coded. We, Chantal (Biology Club President) and Danny (Biology Professor), knew that this data was too important to be held back and needed to be expressed. With the “Wildflowers of GRC” book recently completed, turning these journals into a bird book would be the perfect animal complement. As Chantal and Danny started combing through the journals, Mark introduced us to Ebird.org, a website that compiles information from birders, and how he had been uploading his old records for the campus to it. After a few records requests from Ebird, we had a powerful dataset with records starting in 1993; the bird book seemed to be within reach! With a camera and an audio recorder, we set out to expand on these records and document the avian diversity and phenology of our campus.
When making any “guide” about life, prioritizing the experience of life is key to the spirit of exploration. With the wildflower book, stationary plants are relatively easy to detect through our senses of sight, touch, and sometimes taste; thus we emphasized those qualities. For birds we typically detect them through our senses of sight and hearing. However, the fact that they can fly away often makes it hard to get a visual ID, but the sounds they make can be extremely specific. The novelty of making such a guide to tackle both the experiences of vision and hearing was appealing.
So, we present this journey to bring these birds to the attention of visitors to our campus; you are now our audience! Whether you are a lunch-hour walker or have been walking your dog for years in our forest, this book will provide you with a wealth of recorded observations, experiences and a sense of the birds on campus. We will include never before heard stories “by the birds” that will help you understand the distinct areas of the campus forest. With the spirit of Aldo Leopold’s quote, “The birds tell us and teach us a lot, this little forest we use for multiple purposes, is a community,” we aim to introduce you to the community of life in our forest, by way of the birds.