A pair of binoculars and a guide to the most common birds of Oklahoma might be handy resources for ardent bird watchers in Oklahoma, but Neil Garrison of Oklahoma City has another tool: his ears.
Garrison, retired after a 30-year career as the naturalist at Oklahoma City’s Martin Park Nature Center, says he most enjoys identifying birds by their sounds. At Martin Park, he oversaw the 140-acre nature center’s guided hikes, educational programs and interactive learning center, and still conducts a monthly walking tour of its wooded trails.
“It is very difficult to actually watch birds,” Garrison explains. “They’re small and energetic; they hide out in bushes and trees. What I emphasize is birding by ear. You can identify them by the sound. They can’t hide their voices.”
Garrison is one of a number of birding enthusiasts around Oklahoma who enjoy spotting and identifying the many hundreds of bird species that can be spotted throughout the year, depending on seasonal migration. He says popular spots around Oklahoma City for birding are lakes Overholser and Hefner, and Edmond’s J.L. Mitch Park and E.C. Hafer Park.
Audubon Society chapters are active in several parts of Oklahoma, including Tulsa, Grove (Grand Lake o’ The Cherokees) and Oklahoma City.
Another proponent of listening (as well as watching) for birds is Kimberly Chaps, president of Grand Lake’s reorganized Audubon Society, which she says regularly attracts 20 to 40 people to monthly meetings in Grove. Her advice to new birdwatchers is to get a pair of good binoculars and an Oklahoma bird guide, then download an app to a smart phone that can identify a particular bird by its song.
“You can put your phone down in your yard and the app will identify the bird,” she says. “As it’s hearing it, it’s recording.”
Mary Jackson, president of the Tulsa Audubon Society, says Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center is a popular spot for seeing a wide variety of birds, including scissortail flycatchers, northern flickers, painted buntings, chickadees, painted wrens, eastern bluebirds, Carolina wrens, barn owls and bald eagles – “just all sorts of species of birds,” she says.
Another good birding spot near Tulsa is Woodland Park in Broken Arrow, where the local Audubon Society meets.
Jackson says that not only does she enjoy birding in the Tulsa area, she’s made numerous trips to other parts of Oklahoma, where she encounters different species. She notes that bird populations across the U.S. have declined over the past 50 years, due to habitat loss, collisions with windows and predation by cats. To protect the bird population, she urges people to cultivate native plants in their yards, limit pesticide usage and keep their feline friends indoors. She also advises that people use less outdoor lighting during peak migration periods.
Chaps, meanwhile, says one of the most popular birds that comes to the Grand Lake area during its migration is the majestic white American pelican, which she says arrives “by the thousands.” In fact, the town dedicates an entire weekend to the arrival of the large birds each fall.
The 42nd annual Grove Pelican Festival is set for Oct. 2-5 in Grove’s Wolf Creek Park. Chaps says assisting with the festival is one of the Audubon Society’s primary activities.
Grand Lake, Oklahoma City and Tulsa Audubon Society members participate in the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas bird count, which seeks to count the bird populations throughout the Americas annually. According to its website, the Oklahoma City Audubon Society’s Christmas bird count yielded 109 species in the OKC metro area alone.
For More Information
Oklahoma City Audubon Society
okc-audubon.org
Tulsa Audubon Society
tulsaaudubon.org
Oxley Nature Center
918-596-9054
oxleynaturecenter.org
Friends of Grand Lake Audubon Society
grandlakebirders.com
Grove Pelican Festival
918-786-2289
pelicanfest.com
Martin Park Nature Center
405-297-1429
