Nerdy Birders: Oak Openings Metropark

The Nerdy Birders finally made it back to Oak Openings, however we decided to checkout a different section of the park this time around. We parked at the lot near Evergreen Lake where a few trail heads begin. After gathering our gear and picking a trail we headed off into the woods. This section of the park has many different habitats for birds. Of course there is Evergreen Lake, many different types of trees, streams, open grassy fields, and extremely wooded areas. For the majority of the trip we were running into different woodpeckers such as the downy and the red bellied. We did see some evidence of some larger woodpeckers but no luck finding them. Below is a picture of a red bellied that I captured early on in the hike.

We had very little activity other than the woodpeckers, blue jays, other hikers, bikers, and one man on a horse. I began to take some pictures of the trees around us that if you listened closely to you could hear screeching and moaning in the breeze. Below are a couple of the better pictures from that experiment.

I also managed to get a picture of a deer crossing the path in front of us.

Oak Openings really needs to update their signs and maps because we always manage to get lost or end up on a different trail. After walking in circles to help triangulate a 3G signal on my phone and a short deliberation we managed to find a trail that would take us back to the lake that we could then follow around to the parking lot. Luckily we went to the lake because there were five mallards in it. Two male and three female. They all stayed pretty close to each other so I managed to get a lot of pictures of them.