It is getting increasingly more difficult for me to see new life birds in my area. Many of the eastern birds that I do not have are tougher to get. Out of 67 new birds this year, 54 were seen in Oregon and Washington. Four were seen during the Biggest Week in Ohio and a few were found in Bombay Hook in Delaware. Until recently, I only had one new bird in Pennsylvania – the Worm-eating Warbler. And then I ended the year with three new birds, seen in my state during December, with a New Jersey lifer in-between.
The bird in New Jersey was a surprise lone Ross’s Goose at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.
A lone Ross’s Goose at Forsythe in November
Two of my life birds seen in Pennsylvania are rare species for the area. A Harris’s Sparrow has been hanging out at feeders on a private residence in Williams Township. We waited a few hours for the bird to show up while getting to know the host. You could tell that she loved showing people this bird – she was very accommodating and really does deserve all of the rare birds that happen to find her property (her yard list is well over 200 birds).
Harris’s Sparrow grabbing seed from a rock
Harris’s Sparrow on a platform feeder
The other is a bird that I just wrote a post about, the pair of Barnacle Geese that showed up at a lake 20 minutes away from me. For more on these birds, see my previous post.
Barnacle Goose at Weir Lake
All of these were great birds, but the best is the most recent bird I saw. Another friend-of-a-friend has been seeing a Northern Saw-whet Owl on his property. While we were out and about last Friday, my friend sent the host a message asking if we could see the bird. It turned out that he already located the owl that day and was showing it to a couple of other people; he invited us to tag along.
Northern Saw-Whet Owl at eye level
That was a pretty easy one to get! I never realized how small these owls were until I saw this one. Four local life birds in less then two months – what a great way to end the year!
Barnacle Geese breed in the Arctic islands in the North Atlantic. They will occasionally find themselves off course in the United States. A couple of weeks ago, a pair of them were reported at a lake that is about 20 minutes away from me in Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania. I went after them the day after the initial report during my lunch hour. I had just enough time to drive to the lake, spend about five minutes with the birds and head back home. The lake is private and fenced, so there is no trespassing unless you are a member. I was lucky though – the geese were grazing on the shoreline close to the fence. I was able to see them from the small parking area.
I went up closer to the fence and took a few more photos. The rare birds were very cooperative!
Oh, and did I mention that they were life birds? What a great view!
This species has showed up in a few places within hours of me. There is no evidence that they were escaped birds. This pair seems to be moving with the migrant Canada Geese who may spend the entire winter here, as long as the lake does not freeze.
I think I have an addiction. It is called Barnegat Light. This gem of a place has brought me five excellent trips since my first time going there in November. We had two goals this trip: find Piping Plovers and give my friend, Teri, the Barnegat experience. This trip was suppose to happen last weekend, but the weather did not cooperate and the east coast had heavy rains. This weekend, however, it was warm and the sun was shining.
Barnegat Lighthouse from the jetty
We were greeted by one of the most beautiful waterfowl – the Long-tailed Duck. They were beginning to enter into breeding plumage, something that I have not seen yet.
Female Long-tailed Duck in transitional plumage
Another first for me were Laughing Gulls in breeding plumage. I’ve only ever seen them in the fall. They stayed away from the jetty.
Distant Laughing Gull in breeding plumage
Bird-wise, it started out very quiet. The jetty looked empty and we could not see birds in the water. This could have been due to the very high winds which caused massive waves in the inlet.
High waves across the Barnegat inlet
We left the jetty and went onto the beach to look for Piping Plovers along the fenced off breeding grounds. Still nothing. We finally spotted two birds.
American Oystercatchers near a high tide pool
American Oystercatchers! It seemed like they didn’t want to move, so we made our way closer to them and dropped as low as we could go for some photos. After reviewing the photos on the computer, I noticed something special – the blowing sand was visible in our photos. The three of us had no idea we captured this!
American Oystercatcher surrounded by blowing sand
After this treat, the birds came moving in. A large flock of shorebirds zipped past and landed on the jetty.
Mixed flock of Dunlin, Sanderlings and Purple Sandpipers
We made our way back up on the rocks and snapped away at Dunlin, Purple Sandpipers and Sanderlings. These birds gave us some great photo ops!
Dunlin with a Sanderling in the background
Sanderlings
Purple Sandpiper closeup
That is when we started to see an over-whelming numbers of birds. Adult male Surf Scoters, Loons, Cormorants, Long-tailed Ducks in breeding plumage – it was difficult to concentrate on one bird.
Surf Scoter off the jetty
Long-tailed Ducks, including adult males in both breeding and winter plumage
Great Cormorant after defending a fish from Gulls
Red-throated (non-breeding) and Common (breeding) Loons
And then we spotted Barnegat’s staple wintering bird, the Harlequin Duck.
Harlequin Ducks were still present
The males were getting very feisty now that it is closer to breeding season.
Harlequin Duck chase
They were trying to attract this beautiful girl.
Female Harlequin Duck
We made our way back up the jetty, chasing more Harlequins and looking for new birds. A young Cormorant followed us, but every time we would point our cameras at him, he would dive.
Cormorant making a dive
I did manage to get a nice photo of him though.
Immature Double-crested Cormorant
We ran into our shorebird flock multiple times. They would stay perched until the waves hit the rocks hard.
Shorebird flock getting hit with waves
The waves were just getting worse as we made our way to the end. I stopped a bit early, anticipating wet rocks (and wet camera?) and my friends started their way further up.
High waves along the beach
They changed their minds too and headed back toward me. We could see many birds in the distance – Northern Gannets, many Scoters, tons of Long-tailed Ducks, possible Eiders… too bad we could not get close enough!
A very distant Gannet
We headed back up the jetty, once again, chasing the Harlequins for photos of them on the rocks. I never did get that op this time by, but still got nice photos of them.
Drake Harlequin Duck
We saw other good birds on the way back toward the lighthouse.
Black-bellied Plover in winter plumage
Common Loon in breeding plumage
We then went back onto the beach to look for the Piping Plovers. Unfortunately, it was probably a bit too windy for them and we did not see any. Now that I see the moving sand in some of my photos, I know why a small bird would want to stay away.
Searching for Piping Plovers
On our way back up the beach, we ran into four very cooperative Brant and I got my best photos of them. It was nice getting down at eye level rather than shooting them from above on the jetty!
Some Brant swimming in one of the tidal pools
Even though we dipped on the Plover, it was still a great day of birding. We were able to achieve the most important goal of the trip – introduce a new person to Barnegat and, in the process, get her hooked to it!
I have not been out birding much lately and have been very busy with some big changes in my life – I apologize for slacking with my posting! To make up for it, I will share photos of all of the nesting birds that I found locally this year. Most of the photos are not that great – this is because I observe them from a safe distance and do not want to disturb the nests!!
The only nest I found near my yard, so far, is a Red-bellied Woodpecker cavity. They made it easy to find by constantly calling from the tree. I am still waiting to see the fledglings come to my feeders.
Red-bellied Woodpecker in cavity
I found some nests while out in the field just by seeing birds fly into them.
American Goldfinch on nest
Red-eyed Vireo on nest
Blue Jay on nest
And others were pointed out to me by friends who already knew the location.
Canada Goose on nest
Wood Thrush in nest on my friends property
There is an abandoned building nearby that Cliff Swallows like to nest on every year. Unfortunately, right after we saw them this year the property owners knocked down all of their work.
Cliff Swallows building nest
While out on a trip with my local birding club, we found a female Baltimore Oriole building a nest right above the road. I re-found this nest over the weekend, but did not scout it out to see if it was active.
Baltimore Oriole building her nest
I’ve also found various birds carrying nesting materials – of course, they are very cautious when someone is watching them.
Common Yellowthroat with nesting material
Dark-eyed Junco with nesting material
American Crow with moss
To end this off on a cute note, I will share a non-avian nest – I found this Groundhog den at a local park. The young would crowd around the opening, forage and play.
This past weekend was the tease of March – spring-like weather that gives us false hope that spring is near. I suppose it is near for many, but not for me in my area of upstate New York! I will not be seeing spring weather again until late April, aside from a few similar days here and there like I just experienced. I tried to fit birds into a very busy weekend with some success. On Saturday, I watched my friends fly their Red-tailed Hawk, Rusty.
Rusty the Red-tailed Hawk
Zack, Jenn and Rusty
He is a very handsome Hawk, but unfortunately looks won’t get him live food and he was not very into hunting that day. Could be that he wanted to enjoy the great weather too! He was eventually fed from his lure instead.
Rusty eating from his lure
Yes, that is a foot hanging out of his mouth. And he made a big mess when he gulped down a huge piece of the chick.
Rusty the Red-tailed Hawk
On Sunday, I went out to put up some nesting boxes around my yard. I could hear geese overhead, so I looked up.
Goose Migration
The skies were full of migrating geese! Thousands of Canada Geese passed by as well as Snow Geese. It was hard to keep my eyes off the sky! I also saw many Blackbirds and Gulls passing through, quickly riding the winds. There were other individual birds flying by who were going to quick for me to identify. They are also very high up for me in the valley.
Mixed Goose Flock, with Canadas and Snow
My resident Red-tailed Hawks were out gathering nesting material.
Resident Red-tailed Hawk
There were so many geese in the sky that I accidentally got this photo too.
Red-tailed Hawk with Geese in the background
I took a nice walk down my trails to see if I could find anything interesting. Birds were singing high in the trees, but none were low enough to photograph. I did find some other non-living things of interest: the Pileated Woodpeckers have been busy this winter.
Evidence of my resident Pileated Woodpeckers
Someone is digging up the holes that foxes used a couple of summers ago. Chances are that this is from groundhogs, but I can hope that my foxes are returning, can’t I???
Fresh Fox or Groundhog digging
The very last sighting I had on my trails was a good one! I finally found one of the feeders that the bears stole last time they raided my yard. It was still frozen into the ground, so I will recover it when the ground has thawed.
The feeder that bears stole in the Fall
Back at the feeders, I caught one of my Red-breasted Nuthatches holding on in the winds. He’s not very shy, so he stayed put as I went by.
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Not a bad weekend for birds. Spring is on its way!
Last Thursday, registration opened for the Biggest Week in American Birding. Hundreds of birders have already signed up to enjoy a 10-day week of some of the best Warbler birding in the country! It’s not just about the Warblers though…
What can you expect from going to the Biggest Week?
In early December, I went on a field trip around Cayuga Lake with my local birding club. The one thing that I really wanted to see were snow geese in high numbers. I’ve never witnessed the so called “Snow Goose spectacle” before
While looking at various duck species at North Mill Pond, we started to hear geese flying over head. Thousands of them started to fly west over us toward the lake. We headed further up and saw even more Snow Geese over the lake.
Snow Goose Spectacle
Then we hit the jackpot.
Snow Goose Spectacle
And they kept growing.
Snow Goose Spectacle
And more and more geese were constantly coming in.
We conservatively estimated twenty thousand geese total.
Snow Goose Spectacle
Within this group were many beautiful Blue Morphs.
Blue Morph Snow Geese
And then a boat disturbed them and they took off.
I had to stop the video short because I’ve always wanted a photo where the entire frame was full of flying geese! A true Snow Goose blizzard at last!!
Snow Goose Spectacle
Next time, I will bring two cameras – one for photos and the other for video!!
