Bountiful Birds

Visit Spectacular Birdwatching Spots During Spring Migration

Throughout the spring, millions – on some nights, billions – of birds soar unseen under the stars on their annual migrations north.

People can spot them during the day as birds rest and feast at sites across the Valley region.

It’s a flyway for birds that migrate south in the fall and back north in the spring.

Birdwatching and other types of outdoor recreation bring $13 billion dollars annually to the Tennessee economy alone.

And many top birdwatching sites sit right on Tennessee Valley Authority lands and waters.

TVA’s stewardship of the region’s waters and lands helps improve lives by bringing billions of dollars into local economies for recreation and conservation. Through careful management of the river system, TVA has helped avert billions of dollars in flood damage.

These resources brought birders Herb and Andrea Kupfer to the Songbird Trail near Norris Dam on a sunny spring day.

While Andrea stopped often to listen for birds, Herb spotted them flitting between trees or bobbing in the bushes.

“We do our birding as a team effort,” Andrea said.

“We get exercise and fresh air, sunshine,” Herb said. “And at TVA sites like this, you get the greenspace. Birds are everywhere, so you get to see a lot of different habitats – open grasslands, forests and along rivers.”

Herb and Andrea Kupfer read about some of the many bird species visitors can spot at the Songbird Trail near Norris Dam.

Spring on the Songbird Trail

A rustle overhead, a chirp-chirp, made Andrea stop in her tracks and pull out her phone. On it, she had the Cornell Lab eBird and Merlin apps open.

A tiny gray bird topped with a yellow crest bobbed in a tangle of bare branches high in a tree. Herb zoomed in with his binoculars.

“What are you looking at?” a woman walking with her family stopped to ask.

“A golden-crowned kinglet,” Andrea whispered. “It overwintered here.”

“By that horizontal branch,” Herb said, pointing. “It's hunting insects.”

The woman squinted up, then smiled as she spotted it.

“It looks like a little bitty hummingbird way up there,” she said. “That’s so cool.”

As the family walked on, Andrea and Herb added the kinglet to their list of species and continued along the trail, gravel crunching underfoot.

“Spring promotes a sense of renewal, of rediscovery and ... embracing the return of old friends,” said Cyndi Routledge, CEO of Southeastern Avian Research and president of the Nashville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society.

“As birders, we anxiously await those ‘first of season’ sightings and enthusiastically share them with our birding community as a whole.”

The Kupfers greeted others and logged more winter residents – white-throated sparrows and a ruby-crowned kinglet – and birds that stay year-round, including an American goldfinch, a downy woodpecker and a tiny Carolina chickadee, calling a clear "see-saw, see saw."

Northern cardinals – a scarlet male and rusty female – flashed in the bushes and an American crow soared over the Clinch River.

“And this is how it goes,” Andrea said, shaking her head. “For 30 minutes, there’s no walking involved.”

“Best. Exercise. Ever,” Herb laughed.

The prairie warbler is among the species that call Tennessee home from April to September.

Night Flights

Spring is a prime birdwatching season because birds wear their fanciest bright breeding feathers. They’re also noisy – and exhausted – from all-night flights.

“The birds have one thing in mind – I've got to get to my breeding grounds,” said Damien Simbeck, birder and TVA senior program manager of Natural Resources west operations. “Sometimes, they'll fly hundreds of miles (at once)."

When the birds stop to rest and feed during the day, people can hear and spot them.

“Birds that winter in the Caribbean and Central America usually arrive first – typically by the end of March,” Simbeck said. “Then the bulk of the true northern migrants that nest in New England and Canada come through in late April, early May.”

Birds fly as fast and as far as they can under the cover of darkness, when there are fewer predators and less turbulence.

“Not only that, but the air is typically cooler … so it offers easier lift,” TVA terrestrial zoologist Joshua Argo said. “They're not having to work as hard to stay in the air.”

Night skies also offer birds a map.

“There have been a lot of studies on what they use to navigate,” Simbeck said. “There's magnetism, light and stars."

Herb and Andrea on the Songbird Trail, easily accessible from parking lots.

Lend Birds a Hand

The biggest pulse of migratory bird flight begins right after sunset, when the skies turn from opal to indigo blue.

That’s when birds can go astray.

“Things like big city lights mess up their migration, because they're homing in on a light source and going the wrong direction,” Simbeck said.

Birds rely on unlit landmarks – mountain ranges, grasslands, rivers and powerline rights of way such as those TVA manages – to find their way in a landscape of artificial light. They also remember past migratory routes and rest stops.

Andrea pointed out the impact people can have on their own properties.

“When you build a house and clear everything, or when you remove the scrubby undergrowth that may look ugly to you, that was an important habitat for specific birds,” she said. “They may now be gone, even if you've left large trees still standing.”

But people can actively help birds, too.

Plant native bushes and flowers and leave seedheads on plants all winter. Even though it may look messy, birds rely on the berries and seeds.

In the fall, people can leave some leaves around bushes and the edges of their yard. And in spring, wait to rake and clean out garden beds.

Those actions help the 96% of baby terrestrial birds who gobble insects, which hatch in those leafy microhabitats each spring.

"(Birding) binds us together with a common goal – preserving the landscape and conserving species, so future generations can experience the same anticipation and excitement we enjoy today,” Routledge said.

Spring is a great time to match birdsongs with birds, before trees have leafed out.

App Appreciation

As birds rush north to raise that next generation of baby birds, they warble, chortle and sing.

“The song is to attract a mate, so when it's breeding season, they're more vocal,” Andrea said.

And that benefits birders trying to spot them.

“You get a lot more birds by ear than you can by eye in the springtime,” Simbeck said. “They’re wanting to show off.”

Simbeck and Argo – like the Kupfers – said apps help birders new and old.

The Merlin app listens for and uses artificial intelligence to label possible birdsongs, and eBird lets birders list and learn more about species’ migration timing and routes.

“If you hear something singing and don't know what it is, use the Merlin app … (for) ideas,” Simbeck said. “Then you can find that bird and verify. It helps you learn bird songs as you go.”

As people learn, they can distinguish chirps, calls and primary songs.

“People can practice identifying a vocal mnemonic,” Argo said.

That’s when birdsong sounds like a phrase in human speech.

“Red-eyed vireos say, ‘Look up! See me over here. Look up! See me,’ at a very specific cadence,” Argo said. “You can step out on your porch and identify 20 or 30 different species without ever seeing them.”

The eBird app goes more in-depth and tracks bird sightings over time, too.

“When eBird came out, we started keeping track of the checklists much more than we had in the past,” Andrea said.

And the Kupfers’ newfound knowledge led them to upgrade their binoculars and join birding trips around the world.

“It's made us better birders,” Herb said. “We hear something, we let the app listen, then we know what we're looking for.”

“It’s just a fascinating hobby,” he said. “I’ve come to appreciate the nature of east Tennessee. As I’ve birded more, I’ve learned more.”

Herb and Andrea at the south end of the Songbird Trail at Norris Dam State Park.

Andrea uses a smartphone app to identify a bird call during a stop near the old mill at Norris Dam State Park. 

A great blue heron soars over the Clinch River.

The Songbird Trail offers water, forest and field habitat that birdwatchers can explore in all seasons.

Herb aims his binoculars at tiny birds singing in a tree.