It’s not quite dawn on Oct. 3, and I’m finding my way to an elevated deer blind I put in place a decade ago.

I was hoping that before dawn I could get a saw whet owl to respond to my Sibley app recording.

Saw whet owls are even smaller than our screech owls, and about this time of the year begin their migration through our area. Besides, it’s one of only a couple of birds in Pennsylvania that I still have never seen. Well, that didn’t change today. No luck.

My backup plan was to at least get to hear the pair of great horned owls that I have been seeing and hearing for quite a few years. This is just about the time that male and female great horned owls begin calling just before dawn, at dusk, and into the first hour or two of darkness.

Another disappointment. I didn’t hear any of that pair bond hooting at all. It’s possible it is still a week or two early, or maybe one of the pair has died. Great horned owls have an expected lifespan of about 15 years.

I’ll be in this blind a number of times through late November, and hopefully I’ll hear them communicating sometime before then.

This time of the year, with most of the deciduous leaves still holding on firmly, I knew, with a weak cold frontal passage the night before, that I could catch a few smaller warblers as they stopped here to feed.

I didn’t see or hear the numbers I was hoping, but I did see: black-throated green warblers; black-throated blue warblers; a pine warbler; a few yellow-rumped warblers; and a bit surprising, a common yellowthroat. Our hardiest vireo, the blue headed vireo, and the latest flycatcher, the phoebe, made my outing better as well.

The nice part of sitting about 12 feet from the ground is that I am almost eye level with some of those birds. I didn’t even need my binoculars to identify some because they were so close.

Keeping me company almost all morning were a good number of ruby-crowned kinglets. These small bird versions of the Eveready Bunny just never sit still.

They eat tiny spiders and insects, often by hovering at the edge of a leaf, snatching a bug, and as fast as they got there, are off to another branch or leaf. I probably saw a dozen or more this morning. They don’t nest here and will hang around until most of the leaves drop and then continue farther south.

I saw a hermit thrush (not too unusual for this time of the year) and a Swainson’s thrush that was feeding on the ground beneath me. That was a good find and a new bird for my 2026 Carbon County bird list. In all, I heard or saw 28 different species in about two hours.

Birds weren’t all that I saw that morning. With a few Chinese chestnut trees starting to drop their fruit, gray and red squirrels also kept me entertained. The cheeky red squirrels, smaller than the grays, were not happy to share the bounty. A few chases occurred and the red squirrels did a lot of chattering.

I also watched a doe and her lone 5-month-old fawn feed near me for a few minutes. I did see something new to me. I watched the doe eating the berries of pokeweed. I know birds eat the purple fruits, but this was the first time I realized that deer eat them, too.

It is still a good time to catch some birds, but at the least, get out there and enjoy the October feel.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: (See bottom right photo).

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: All of the following are invasive plants affecting our local habitats and wildlife: phragmites, Japanese stilt grass, Japanese knotweed, Japanese barberry and autumn (Russian) olive. More on these problems in a later column.

Email Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com