Birds at the dock

May 6, 2026: 12 species identified by BirdNET listening to the dock microphone. Carolina Chickadee was the most active with 22 minutes active; Barn Swallow traveled farthest, a 9,700 mi round trip.

Minutes active by hour

Each bar counts the 1-minute windows in which BirdNET identified a species at high confidence (its minutes active), bucketed by Eastern Time hour. The dawn chorus typically peaks between 6 and 8 a.m.

☀ SUNRISE 6:41 AMSUNSET ☾ 8:29 PM0510152012 AM4 AM8 AMNOON4 PM8 PM

Species heard

Carolina Chickadee
22 minutes active
Carolina Chickadee
Carolina Wren
19 minutes active
Carolina Wren
Northern Cardinal
14 minutes active
Northern Cardinal
American Crow
10 minutes active
American Crow
Tufted Titmouse
8 minutes active
Tufted Titmouse
Blue Jay
8 minutes active
Blue Jay
Eastern Bluebird
7 minutes active
Eastern Bluebird
Barn Swallow
4 minutes active · 9,700 mi round trip
Barn Swallow
Tree Swallow
4 minutes active · 3,700 mi round trip
Tree Swallow
Eastern Kingbird
3 minutes active · 8,200 mi round trip
Eastern Kingbird
Downy Woodpecker
2 minutes active
Downy Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
2 minutes active
Red-bellied Woodpecker

How this works

A microphone is mounted at the dock at Tennessee River Mile 559.5, listening to the lake 24/7. Audio runs through BirdNET from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, an open-source neural network that identifies bird species by sound. Detections at high confidence are tallied here.

Bird photos are pulled automatically from Wikipedia and cropped to the bird with YOLOv8 object detection. Individual photo credits are on each species' Wikipedia page.