Lake Barkley Naturalist and Recreation Blog

The weather and peak color change last week and continuing this week has provided some fantastic hiking conditions. Most of our vibrant colors this week are being provided by Red & White Oaks, Hickories, Sweetgums, and a few maples. Some dogwoods, Blackgums, and sassafras are also providing color this week, but the majority are past peak and turning brown or falling. Although we may be a few days past peak at the park, it is one of my favorite times of the fall season, where even a slight breeze provides “rain” showers of leaves.
The birds seem to be enjoying the nice weather this week too. This morning I watched a flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers, one of the few warbler species that winters in Kentucky. They were visiting a small puddle surrounded by fallen leaves, and they took turns bathing and preening insects off the leaves. Later in the morning I spotted a Dark-eyed junco, a common winter feeder bird, visiting the same puddle. Pied-billed Grebes and White Pelicans were also spotted this morning at the lodge.
Don’t forget to come out to Lake Barkley State Resort Park and enjoy our fall color change – it won’t be here much longer!

Spiders. Just the word can invoke fear in many people, but spiders provide a great service to people by consuming millions of insects. W.S. Bristowe, a naturalist who studied spiders, calculated that over a year, spiders in England consumed a weight of insects greater than the weight of all the people living in England. Perhaps the prevalence of arachnophobia (the fear of spiders) is based in part because there are some spiders that can harm people. Of the 30,000+ species of spiders, all are venomous, but very few have strong enough fangs or powerful enough venom to harm a person. In Kentucky, two types of venomous spiders occur, the Brown Recluse and Black Widow spiders.



The Black widow is a fairly common spider which is often found in quiet areas. They tend not to be aggressive and only bite when attacked or threatened. The bite is rarely fatal.
These two photos show a Black Widow spider with red spots and a line running down it's abdomen.

Everyday at Lake Barkley SRP the trees seems to reveal just a little bit more color than the day before. The landscape is now dotted with hints of red, orange, and yellow.


Maples are just starting to show some color along the lodge entrance
Over the last week maples have started to change from green to a bright orange-red color. The entrance into the lodge is lined with maples that are now showing just a dab of color, in just a few weeks they all should be changing and bursting with color welcoming guests to the lodge. In addition to the maples, Black Gums, Dogwoods, and Sassafras trees are showing a red or orange color. A few of the Willow Oaks are changing early and just showing a bit of their golden yellow. While you’re looking at the fall color change, be sure to keep an eye out for migrating birds. White Pelicans and a variety of ducks have been spotted north of Lake Barkley, so they should be at the park soon.

If you are interested in viewing fall color reports from around the state, visit Kentucky's ColorFall Program

A special guest arrived today at the front desk, but not of the human variety. The front desk staff had noticed a bird, that seemed to have a broken wing, hopping around the breezeway. The attentive staff was able to capture the bird without incident. When I fist saw the bird, I was surprised to find it was a hatch year Red-eyed Vireo. I knew it was a hatch year, or one hatched this summer, because its eyes were a brownish color instead of red like adult birds (it was also later verified as a hatch year by a lack of ossification of the skull). Upon examination of the bird, I found no broken bones, but did find that its left wing, foot, and tail had become entangled in a thin elastic thread. The thread prevented it from spreading its wing fully and its tail feathers were bound together preventing proper flight. After twenty minutes of careful removal of the thread, the bird was released and we watched with delight as it immediately spread its wings and flew to a nearby tree.

Red-eyed Vireos are fairly common residents of Kentucky in the summer time and nest in forested areas and even some suburban areas. They are currently migrating throughout the state on their way to their wintering grounds in South America.

Our first hummingbird arrived in early April this year, and we have been enjoying them ever since. Now hummingbird migration is in full swing at Lake Barkley State Resort Park. This week, up to fifteen hummingbirds have been seen visiting the five feeders up near the outdoor pool. Most likely these birds breed further north and are visiting Lake Barkley to refuel before continuing their journey further south to places like Mexico and Panama. If you have a feeder up already, you can keep it up through October and it will not effect migration. Hummingbirds migrate based on day length and weather, not the availability of food.