Earliest riser
Great Blue Heron
First heard at 2:03 AM.
Birds at the dock
October 18, 2026: 24 species identified by BirdNET listening to the dock microphone. Carolina Wren was the most active with 52 minutes 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
Blue Jay
Still calling at 11:44 AM.
Busiest minute
6 species at once
At 7:29 AM: Belted Kingfisher, Carolina Wren, Eastern Towhee, Northern Mockingbird, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Red-headed Woodpecker.
Weather watchers
Fair-weather singer
American Crow
100% of its active minutes came during calm air.
Fair-weather singer
Belted Kingfisher
100% of its active minutes came during calm air.
Character and company
The regular
Carolina Wren
Heard every day for 141 days running.
Duet partners
American Crow and Fish Crow
Calling in the same minute 60% of the time this week.
Rising star
Blue Jay
Up 4h 20m 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
141 days
Carolina Wren, ending 2026-10-18.
Species heard
52 minutes active
Carolina Wren
40 minutes active
Northern Cardinal
37 minutes active
Red-bellied Woodpecker
34 minutes active
Carolina Chickadee
31 minutes active
American Crow
31 minutes active
Blue Jay
29 minutes active
House Finch
24 minutes active
Northern Flicker
23 minutes active
Eastern Bluebird
19 minutes active
Eastern Towhee
19 minutes active
White-throated Sparrow
18 minutes active
White-breasted Nuthatch
15 minutes active
Red-headed Woodpecker
14 minutes active
Tufted Titmouse
12 minutes active
Northern Mockingbird
12 minutes active
Belted Kingfisher
12 minutes active
Yellow-rumped Warbler
7 minutes active
Golden-crowned Kinglet
6 minutes active
Great Blue Heron
4 minutes active
Red-shouldered Hawk
3 minutes active
Brown Thrasher
3 minutes active
Eastern Phoebe
2 minutes active
Downy Woodpecker
2 minutes active
Fish Crow
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.