erin Oe Be OaNe eB Uel leh dN 5 
The evenings at Turkey Run are usually cool, and many visitors enjoy 
sitting on the park benches, relaxing after a day on the trails. As dusk 
comes on, a shorter and less varied rendition of the wood pewee’s morning 
twilight song may be heard, and a little later the air suddenly throbs with 
the emphatic notes of a whip-poor-will perched on the ridge of a cottage 
roof or in a nearby tree. If near enough, one can often hear the curious 
sound preliminary to each phrase, sounding like the light tap of a wooden 
gavel against wood. In the distance other whip-poor-wills can be heard, 
but the “knock” is not audible for more than a few yards. And once they 
start, their songs run on and on for what to many listeners are seemingly 
interminable periods. More than once the author has drifted into sleep 
while counting the phrases uttered by some particular bird without pause. 
By morning the total was usually forgotten, but some counts ran up well 
over 100. 
Oftentimes, late in the evening, one or more barred owls can be heard 
in the distance, and occasionally one comes into the trees that surround the 
hotel grounds. One night, just as we were dropping off to sleep, the hair 
on our necks was raised by a blood-curdling scream. Almost immediately 
afterward came the deep-voiced “hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoah” of an owl. The 
presumption was that there was rabbit meat for dinner that night! 
Among other birds commonly found about the hotel and picnic grounds 
are to be mentioned tufted titmouse, warbling vireo, mourning dove, catbird, 
cedar waxwing, goldfinch, downy woodpecker, robin, crested fly-catcher, and 
white-breasted nuthatch. 
Along Sugar Creek itself one may expect to see certain species on almost 
any early trip in the summer. Kingfishers in particular attract attention 
as they give their rattling calls while flying up or down stream. Apparently 
each pair fishes and patrols a certain section of river, for we never have 
seen more than two of the birds over extensive stretches. Their white 
breasts gleam in the sunshine of early morning as they sit on some bare 
branch, intent on a potential breakfast in the water beneath, or make a 
splashing dive for some luckless minnow. Bank swallows and rough-winged 
swallows also take advantage of the open spaces of water, and of the many 
gnats and other small insects found there, to garner their meals. Their 
excellent control of flight as they dive and swoop, climb and bank, is a 
never-ending source of enjoyment to the watcher. 
One or more of the gravel-bars in the section of Sugar Creek within 
the park génerally is used by a spotted sandpiper for nesting. It is often 
difficult to find the shallow cup of grass, which is built in a tuft of sedges, 
or even among the pebbles, which give a considerable camouflage to the eggs. 
The newly-hatched young squat motionless at the approach of an intruder, 
and their mottled gray and black plumage blends well with the pebbles and 
mud of the gravel-bar. Upon hatching they are able to run about and even 
feed themselves soon after becoming dry. This precocity is, in reality, the 
result of being in an advanced stage of development at hatching, compared 
with altricial species, in which the young come into the world naked and 
blind. In comparison with a cardinal, which has about the same adult body 
size as the sandpiper, the incubation period of the latter is three or four 
