On Sunday, April 24, 2022, ABAS led a field trip to Atterbury and Driftwood State Fish and Wildlife Areas (FWA) in Edinburgh. These are two great gems for birding, just south of Indianapolis. The field trip was led by ABAS Education Chair, Jessica Helmbold, who is familiar with the area as she visited them often in her time as a student at Franklin College. Seven members joined Jessica on the field trip.
We started at 8:00 am at Atterbury FWA at the south Pisgah Lake parking area, which is not far off US-31 in northern Edinburgh near the National Guard facilities. Here we spotted several species of waterfowl, along with some warblers, tanagers and orioles migrating through. Species of note include Blue-winged Teal, Ruddy Duck, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Parula, Orchard Oriole, Baltimore Oriole, and Scarlet Tanager. There were several individuals out in kayaks on the lake that told us that if we wait until about 10:30, we’d likely see the Bald Eagle. I guess that’s his Sunday morning brunch spot! However, we decided to move on before then.
Around 11:00 am we arrived at Driftwood FWA which is just south of Atterbury on US-31 near the Edinburgh Outlets. Driftwood is nice in that it has two sizeable lakes as well, Plover & Sandpiper Pits, which are old borrow pits. The lakes have trails that allow you to walk all the way around them. We did a small portion of the lake trail, as birding was excellent. I had forgotten how good Driftwood was for seeing warblers. This visit was no disappointment. There are lots of smaller evergreen and shrub-like trees they like to hang out in for easy viewing. Some warblers you could see well even without binoculars. Warbler species we saw included, Prothonotary, Yellow, Northern Parula, and Yellow-throated. We saw another pair of Blue-winged Teal here as well, assuming the pair from Atterbury didn’t follow us there ?. We also had the pleasure of seeing Chimney Swifts, Tree Swallows, Eastern Bluebirds, Eastern Towhees, and a Great Blue Heron trying to swallow a large fish. I put my spotting scope on the heron for several minutes and we watched as he tried to maneuver the fish down his throat. We finished up birding around noon and called it a day as birds were becoming less active.
For a complete list of species seen, click on the two eBird lists below.