Anhinga at Tinicum

          

Anhinga Soaring over John Heinz Refuge

          In case you have been living in a world without the internet you should know that an Anhinga has settled in and is earning a living at John Heinz in the Delaware County section of the refuge. The Anhinga was first seen on August 24 and has probably been present since then. However, it has been more conspicuous for the last a week and appears to be roosting at the tank farms across the Darby Creek from the refuge HQ. It can usually be seen between 9AM and 11AM when for some reason it seems to appear above the treeline and circles around for about 10-20 minutes and than glides back down out of sight. I recently visited the refuge and spent about three hours on the main boardwalk in search of the Anhinga with Dirk Robinson and Armus Hill who were both looking for the bird. At 11AM I told them that I was giving up the search and was walking back to the car. On the way back I stopped at the boat launch to see if I could get a view of the area where we think the Anhinga is roosting, but no luck. I turned back towards the parking lot and some guy was jogging by and asked if I saw anything unusual today and I told him nothing but the usual herons and egrets. As soon as he walked away I looked up and there was the Anhinga circling directly over my head. I watched for about five minutes and got one decent photo with my little camera which appears above. I called Dirk to tell those guys about the sighting but they were already watching the bird from the boardwalk. So it wasn't a waste of time in my opinion and I got to see the bird in both Philadelphia and Delaware Counties. Pretty cool bird for Pennsylvania.