Earliest riser
Great Blue Heron
First heard at 2:28 AM.
Birds at the dock
August 28, 2026: 31 species identified by BirdNET listening to the dock microphone. Ruby-throated Hummingbird was the most active with 1h 28m active.
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.
Fun stats
A few things the microphone noticed. Every number below comes from high-confidence detections, and any stat that could not be measured cleanly is left off rather than guessed.
The day's rhythm
Last call
American Goldfinch
Still calling at 3:23 PM.
Busiest minute
6 species at once
At 8:56 AM: American Crow, Blue Jay, Carolina Wren, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Red-headed Woodpecker, Tufted Titmouse.
Weather watchers
Fair-weather singer
American Crow
100% of its active minutes came during calm air.
Fair-weather singer
American Goldfinch
100% of its active minutes came during calm air.
Character and company
The regular
Carolina Wren
Heard every day for 90 days running.
Duet partners
Blue Jay and Red-shouldered Hawk
Calling in the same minute 41% of the time this week.
Rising star
House Finch
Up 1h 44m active on last week.
Records
Busiest day
14h 19m active
Set on 2026-07-06.
Most species in a day
51 species
Recorded on 2026-07-06.
Longest streak
90 days
Carolina Wren, ending 2026-08-28.
Species heard
1h 28m active
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
1h 15m active
Carolina Chickadee
1h 8m active
Carolina Wren
1h 4m active
Blue Jay
60 minutes active
Red-headed Woodpecker
48 minutes active
Tufted Titmouse
46 minutes active
House Finch
42 minutes active
Northern Cardinal
40 minutes active
American Crow
28 minutes active
Hairy Woodpecker
23 minutes active
White-breasted Nuthatch
18 minutes active
Red-eyed Vireo
15 minutes active
Eastern Bluebird
14 minutes active
Cedar Waxwing
14 minutes active
Blue-grey Gnatcatcher
13 minutes active
Yellow-throated Vireo
12 minutes active
American Goldfinch
11 minutes active
Belted Kingfisher
11 minutes active
Philadelphia Vireo
10 minutes active
Fish Crow
9 minutes active
Red-shouldered Hawk
8 minutes active
Pileated Woodpecker
6 minutes active
Eastern Phoebe
6 minutes active
Downy Woodpecker
3 minutes active
Great Blue Heron
3 minutes active
Great Horned Owl
3 minutes active
Eastern Wood-Pewee
3 minutes active
Northern Mockingbird
2 minutes active
Barred Owl
2 minutes active
Osprey
2 minutes active
Red-tailed Hawk
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.