Dolly Sods, WV!

On September 10th, I went on a day-trip with my bird club to Dolly Sods, West Virginia! I have been wanting to go there for some time. To give you an idea of what it looks like, here are some pictures of the scenery:

Meadow and forest picture. The rocks in the field are natural.

Pine forests and meadow

Pine forests

Wildflowers

Shenandoah Mountain range view

We started by visiting the Allegheny Front Migratory Observatory, a bird banding station in Dolly Sods. Because of their strategic position in the Allegheny Front migratory bird flyway, they band HUGE numbers of birds. One day, they banded over nine-hundred birds! The station is active in the morning and from August to November, which is the ideal time for catching migratory birds.

When we came, they had already caught a dozen grocery bags (when a bird is caught, it is put in a sandwich bag, and then put into a grocery bag with other birds, until it can be banded) filled with birds to be banded. They actually had a whole bag filled with just Cape May Warblers.

Here is another view of the scenery from the banding station:

I was able to get great close-up pictures of migratory birds being banded:

Magnolia Warbler

Black-throated Blue Warbler

Black-throated Blue - You can really see the green on his back

Female Common Yellowthroat

Femal Black-throated Blue. I got to hold and release this bird!

Bay-breasted Warbler - best view I've ever gotten of one.

Tennessee Warbler - This was a life bird

Red-breasted Nuthatch! My best view of one.

Same Nuthatch

Cape May Warbler

Red-breasted Nuthatch flapping his wings

Magnolia Warbler

Black-throated Green Warbler

Black-and-white Warbler

Cape May Warbler

Blackburnian Warbler

American Redstart! Everyone was happy about catching this.

Chestnut-sided Warbler - Blurry picture, but you can see the green cap on it's head.

This was a great bird to get!! The banding station has only caught 56 Blue-winged Warblers in 58 years of banding.

Same Blue-winged Warbler

Red-eyed Vireo (notice he is biting the bander's hand)

Scarlet Tanager

Swainson's Thrush

Blue-headed Vireo

Ovenbird

THIS was a good catch! A Grey-cheeked Thrush! When I found out they had caught one, I ran as fast as I could to get a picture.

Grey-cheeked Thrush (left) and Swainson's Thrush (right)

Cape May Warbler

After seeing the banding, we ate lunch and got great views of the scenery at Dolly Sods.

Windmills on a mountain range

Forest and brush at Dolly Sods.

More scenery. Note the red leaves of the huckleberry bushes.

We went for a walk and ate huckleberries and cranberries in this bog. It was as if we had stepped into Canada, because this is actually what it looks like there. Bog habitat like this is very uncommon here.

Here's a close-up of some red-leaved huckleberry bushes. Huckleberries taste like blueberries, except they are smaller, sweeter, and have crunchy seeds. Raw cranberries are crunchy and very tart. They taste great!

Broad-winged Hawk

After that, we left Dolly Sods and explored other places in the area.

American Kestrel

Killdeer

Somewhere in this picture is a Baird's Sandpiper. I don't have the resolution to see it. We saw the first Baird's Sandpiper that's ever been seen in Grant County.