Steere Hill Land Trust on 9/5/14

Steere Hill Land Trust, Glocester, RI
9/5/14
6:30-8:45 PM
Leader: Dan Berard
23 participants

While the birding was arguably a little slow, we had some cool birds including a flyby woodcock and some Barred Owls calling back and forth. There was also a fair amount of nocturnal migration; with the quiet and elevation, the top of ‘the hill’ is a good place to listen for migrants in the evening.

This area is also a great spot to listen to and look for singing insects and we were treated to excellent looks at some really cool species like Sword-bearing Conehead, Round-tipped Conehead, a bush katydid, and a singing Broad-winged Tree Cricket. Overall, we recorded 18 species of singing insect, and heard and saw several unIDed ones.

Another highlight was being surrounded by a large number of darners and one pennant darting around doing a bit of mosquito control.

Bats were far less cooperative, with a quick fly by only seen by a few in the group.

Here’s the full trip list:

Birds

• Canada Goose -  X     Flock heard in distance
  
• American Woodcock - 1
  
• Barred Owl - 2
  
• Downy Woodpecker -  1
  
• Eastern Wood-Pewee -  2
  
• Warbling Vireo -  1
  
• Blue Jay -  1
  
• Black-capped Chickadee -  4
  
• Tufted Titmouse - 2
  
• House Wren -  1
  
• Veery > 2     (One bird heard on the ground; later, 3 NFCs heard)
  
• Swainson's Thrush -  1
  
• American Robin -  6      
  
• Gray Catbird - 2
  
• Cedar Waxwing - 2
  
• Nashville Warbler -  1
  
• Common Yellowthroat -  2
  
• American Redstart -   NFCs - 4
  
• Pine Warbler -  1 warbler sp. - NFCs - (7 unable to discern beyond warbler)
• Eastern Towhee -  2
  
• Song Sparrow -  4
  
• Northern Cardinal -  5
  
• Indigo Bunting - NFCs - 2
  
• Common Grackle - 1
  
• American Goldfinch -  1
  

Insects 

• Slender Meadow Katydid
  
• Round-tipped Conehead
  
• Sword-bearing Conehead
  
• Oblong-winged Katydid
  
• Rattler Round-winged Katydid
  
• Northern Bush Katydid
  
• Fork-tailed Bush Katydid
  
• Common True Katydid
  
• Drumming Katydid (After the walk, one of these tiny katydids landed on someone. While they’re non-native, they’re interesting in that they don’t ‘sing’ by stridulating like other katydids, but make noise by stomping on a leaf)
  
• Fall Field Cricket
  
• Allard’s Ground Cricket
  
• Carolina Ground Cricket
  
• Two-spotted Tree Cricket
  
• Four-spotted Tree Cricket (We saw and heard quite a few of these in the tall grasses)
  
• Black-horned Tree Cricket
  
• Pine Tree Cricket
  
• Broad-winged Tree Cricket
  
• Snowy Tree Cricket