Wow! What a week of Birding

Harris's Sparrow with Cardinal

     Sharon and I had a great week of birding this past week. On Tuesday we headed to Kempton in Berks County just south of Hawk Mountain in search of the Harris's Sparrow. We had brought along a bag of bird seed to add to the pile already there and than just waited. During the 40 minute wait we saw several sparrows and Juncos, along with two Wild Turkeys. Finally a White-crowned Sparrow showed up and than the Harris's Sparrow appeared from nowhere. 
      Afterwards we headed to Hawk Mountain to take a peak at the feeders and added a Black-capped Chickadee to our year list.
      From there we traveled to Hamburg to the Kearchers Pond Park in search of the White Ibis but we had no luck with that guy. So we headed south to Gilbertsville to see the Bullock's Oriole. An adult male Bullock's Oriole was present last winter at this woman's house and amazingly it appeared again this year. We arrived at her home at 12:15PM and at 12:20PM the bird arrived at her suet feeder.

Bullock's Oriole Gilbertsville, PA 

     At Marsh Creek State Park later that day we found a Common Goldeneye and both Common and Red-throated Loons.

     Thursday morning found me at the Exton Mall anticipating the BCDC field trip to Lancaster County led by the All-star Birding Lady, Holly Merker. As we left the parking lot it started to rain, but I thought to myself, some of the best birds are seen on days like this. And the premonition came true. In Lancaster, Holly found a dark phase Rough-legged Hawk sitting on a fence post.

Horses studying Barb Elliot and George Wrangham

As the Rough-legged Hawk was posing at the top of a willow tree, a Red-tailed Hawk came in and landed about five feet away, trying to scare the Rough-legged away but he wouldn't budge. Later, at Groffdale Rd we finally found a decent size flock of Horned Larks and in among them I spotted one lonely Lapland Longspur.
     We then headed back to the Struble Lake area and searched through some other flocks of Horned Larks, but no luck. As we were approaching the Struble Lake parking lot, Hawk-eye Holly says to me, "What's that bird on the top of that tree?". We stop and there it was, a Northern Shrike. So we went and parked the cars and came back to get a better view. We managed to get the bird in the scope for every one to see. It appeared to be a young bird. The mask of the bird was very dull giving the bird a weird look to the facial area.

Northern Shrike Struble Lake (Holly Merker)

     Finally, on Friday Sharon and I headed to Easton, MD to the Pickering Creek Audubon Sanctuary. There was a Virginia Warbler found there a few days ago and confirmed yesterday. We arrived there at 11:30, after a late start from home. It was about a two hour drive. But be warned that your GPS unit will land you at a site about 3 miles away from the sanctuary, so use the website directions. When we arrived there was a large crowd of folks already assembled along the path. Some folks got a quick glimpse of the bird early this morning, but it was not cooperating for the rest of the folks. We stayed for about an hour and then decided to head out for lunch. Upon our return we heard that the warbler was seen about five minutes ago. So I picked a spot along the trail and waited. Within five minutes I heard a chip note that wasn't familiar to me, so I knew this had to be our bird. Trouble was, he wasn't showing himself. So we waited some more, and finally the bird flushed out and flew away from us, heading across the field, but we could still hear the chip notes. Some other birders were on that side of the field and because they were talking so loudly, I think the bird flushed back towards us. Then all of a sudden the bird appeared at the top of a small shrub and in plain site. We could see the bright yellow undertail coverts and the grayish body as it hopped around the shrub.  

Virginia's Warbler (Photo from Internet)

Razorbill at Manasquan Inlet, NJ

Razorbill at Manasquan Inlet (Photo by Nick Pulcinella)

     Nick and I decided to head to Manasquan Inlet and Shark River on Friday to see what was happening since neither of us had been that for over four years. When we arrived at the inlet, the ocean was so calm that there was no wave action at all. The tide was outgoing, so there was some riptide effect where the inlet met the ocean, which usually produces flocks of Bonaparte's Gull feeding, but not today. We did find Red-throated and Common Loons plus the usual gull species and some Gannets.

Purple Sandpipers

      We then drove to Shark River Inlet and were immediately shocked when we discovered there were about 300 Mute Swans swimming around. For the record, Mute Swans are far from being mute. There was quite a lot of grunts and squeals among all those swans. Am Wigeons, Black, Mallards and Ruddy Ducks were spotted along with Hooded and Red-breasted Mergansers. After driving around the inlet and birding along the ocean we decided to go back to the inlet for another look before heading home. We arrived and I told Nick there was a close Common Loon that would make a good photo. As he was getting ready to walk over to the loon, Nick yells there's a Razorbill flying into the inlet. Well, it flew right by us and landed in the inlet but unfortunately landed on the other side of the channel. We wanted to get a closer look and better pictures, so we drove around to the opposite side, which took us about 15 minutes. As we arrived, we were hoping the Razorbill was still there. It was! We watched the bird for a good 40 minutes from 20 feet away to about 300 feet.  We finally left there satisfied with our photos and pleased that the Razorbill made its appearance when it did..

The Day of the Dovekie: A "Paulagic" Birding Adventure at Sea

As you may recall from my blog entry in August 2011, one of my favorite types of bird watching is seabirding, or pelagic birding. The winter ocean offers the possibility of seeing species not found this far south during the summer months. Alcids are an attraction for these winter tours of the ocean, and a trip off-shore from NJ this past Saturday (2/4) was the best winter pelagic I’ve been on for seeing these birds.

My trip started out at 3:15am, when I met up with my friend Brian Henderson in King of Prussia. We figured we’d try doing the trip in one long day, rather than staying overnight on the Jersey Shore. We arrived at Wildwood Crest before 5:30am, and met our leader, Montgomery Co., PA resident Paul Guris, at the dock. The boat Paul chartered for this trip was the 110 foot “Atlantic Star”, which was a great boat for this sort of trip.

This had to be one of the better days of winter to be on the ocean for birdwatching. The sea was tame, at 1-3 feet, and there was little wind. The sun was shining until early afternoon, making viewing and photography conditions optimal, not to mention that it wasn’t very cold. The calm seas helped us find the floating alcids, who otherwise blend into the backdrop of the surface of a choppy sea.

It was dark when we pulled out from the pier, but soon, daylight made viewing easier. Shortly into the trip, we started spotting loons, scoters, and one of my favorites: The Northern Gannet. Gannets were with us much of the day, to my delight. It was entirely amusing and awesome to watch them as they came in and either sliced into the ocean sideways to get to the chum that was falling into the water, or, plunge dive beak first like an aquatic missile. The sound effects completed the show: just before they dove, they squawked twice in a gravely voice, and went down. It was very entertaining to watch!

Northern Gannet squawking as it comes in for a plunge dive

Northern Gannet gracefully soars above the water

Razorbills were the first distant alcids to be spotted. This was expected, as Razorbills tend to stay closer to land than the other alcid species. Alcids are pelagic birds who are more adapted to using their wings to “fly” underwater, rather than in air. That said, unlike the penguin, these birds do a good amount of flying. They dive deep into the water using their webbed feet and wings to propel them, and their sleekly compact bodies to torpedo down to their preferred food source, sometimes a few hundred feet down.

We were about sixteen miles out to sea when seven little white dots bounced up from the surface of the ocean, and formed a fast moving line. Shouts of “DOVEKIE!!!” could be heard echoing around the boat. While we thought we might see some, as reports earlier in the week gave promise, seeing them this close inland was a surprise. While the looks were distant for this first sighting, there was no doubt that the “flying Nerf footballs”, as Paul Guris described, were these tiny seabirds on the move.

The first seven Dovekie of what would be close to seven hundred totaled for the day

Little did we know at this point, the boat would tally over 660 Dovekie spotted throughout the day. There were periods of time when many strings of Dovekie could be seen flying low to the water across the open ocean. Rarely were they seen flying solo, most often they were oddly in groups of four or eight. There were some the boat came up fairly close to as they were floating on the surface, where we could get nice long appreciative looks at these tiny little seabirds.

Two Dovekie floating by the boat

Alcids, and particularly the Dovekie, have many threats of predation on the open ocean. There are the larger fish and presumably sharks that could snatch a floating Dovekie from below, but the aerial predators who find them can be quite menacing and fierce, particularly the larger gull species. Unfortunately, we got to witness a Great Black-backed Gull pluck a Dovekie off the water and carry it away. It was unclear whether or not the Dovekie was already dead, or, if the Great Black-backed in fact killed the bird before pulling it off the ocean. I was photographing the gull, and wondering “what’s that black thing it’s carrying?” before we all realized exactly what was happening. The photos were telling of the story. Such is the circle of life, and nature.

Great Black-backed Gull has just plucked a Dovekie off the surface

Great Black-backed Gull carries the lifeless Dovekie away

In addition to that casualty, another Dovekie met it’s demise yesterday, likely at the beak of a Herring Gull. The dead bird was noticed and pulled from the ocean by Paul, who brought it on board for us all to study. It was amazing to see just how small these birds truly are up close.

This dead Dovekie allowed many to study and learn this bird up close

A “fanciful” little alcid we are all familiar with, birder or not, is the Atlantic Puffin. This bird sports a highly decorative beak during the breeding season, which coupled with what looks akin to theatrical eye make-up, can make them look quite clownish in appearance. After the breeding ritual is complete, the bright colors and crisp white face being to fade, as the colors peel off the bill, and the facial feathers being to fill in with a smudgy gray. This change is advantageous for survival on the open ocean, as the birds blend into the water. On this trip, we were lucky enough to encounter eighteen individual total. A few were floating close enough to the boat to allow some photographs, and long studies of this large beaked bird.

We had fewer Common Murre, but there were a couple that sat still long enough for us to study, including this one

One of the specialty gulls of the pelagic trips in winter are Black-legged Kittiwakes. Not easily found from land, or close to it (that said—read Al Guarente’s report from last year of an encounter on the Cape May-Lewes Ferry!), this demure looking gull is often attracted to the “chum slicks” provided by fishing boats and seabirding tours. We had several encounters with this species, and were treated to a variety of ages to compare the plumages. While I am a fan of the “black Ms” on the back of the younger birds, the older birds are a treat to see when compared to the bulky Herring Gulls and massive Great Black-backeds.

Adult Black-legged Kittiwake skips on the surface to take off

My favorite seabirds are the “tubenosed” birds. So, multiple visits from Northern Fulmars really made my day. Like the Shearwaters and Petrels, these birds are built for soaring and gliding above the ocean for endless miles. The long tapered wings enable them a life on open water, traveling long distances with little effort . This bird nests on cliffs in the Arctic and subartic, but spends their winter months where the seas are free of ice, including a good portion of the Atlantic seaboard. Like the other tubenose species, the naricorn or tube atop the bill of a Fulmar, helps the bird to smell at long distances, and filter out the salt from the seawater. No doubt the chum and oil slick provided by Paul and his crew of “chummers” attracted the attention of this very obliging Northern Fulmar:

Northern Fulmar (light phase)

Size comparison (l-r) Herring Gull, Northern Fulmar, Northern Gannet

As always, I am eager to have another opportunity to get off-shore in search of birds. 
If this type of birdwatching looks appealing to you, I highly recommend going out with Paul Guris and his See Life Paulagics tour company. Paul runs at top notch trip. (http://www.paulagics.com/) .

Paul and his spotters will show you the birds, and any other ocean life encountered (I forgot to mention we saw several pods of dolphins and a Finback Whale, a species that is federally listed as endangered).

After this very satisfying day at sea, Brian and I headed back to Pennsylvania. While it made for a very long day, making it a daytrip, it wasn’t as hard as I expected. I guess the adrenaline from such a great day on the ocean, and seeing fabulous birds, makes anything seem doable! I hope that you, too, will have a chance to get off shore and see some of these ocean specialty birds.

When you do, I wish you fair winds and following seas, and great birds!

All Photos taken and copyrighted by Holly Merker

5 Species of Gulls at Blue Marsh Lake, Berks County

Glaucous Gull (center) & Iceland Gull (upper right) - Click to enlarge

     After leading a joint bird walk for the Friends of Glen Providence Park and the BCDC this morning I came home and picked up Sharon and we headed up to Blue Marsh Lake in Berks County. When we arrived at the Dry Brooks Day Use Area we could see a large number of gulls resting on the beach. Sharon and I walked down to the bath houses to get closer to the beach and started scanning the gulls. After several scans we only found Lesser Black-backed, Herring and Ring-billed Gulls. At this point Carl Juris and his wife arrived to help out. After another five minutes we still found nothing new. Joan Silagy then arrived on the scene and informed us that the Glaucous Gull was seen this morning. Good News! We started scanning again and then Joan yelled out that she had the Glaucous Gull and we all managed to get the gull in our scopes. A handsome, immature, all white gull, with the exception of the bill tip, which was black. As I was watching the Glaucous Gull an Iceland Gull floated into view. How cool was that? Awesome.

     For info about Blue Marsh go to http://www.nap.usace.army.mil/sb/bm_guide.htm.

Glaucous Gull ( Note larger size than Herring Gull)

Visitors from far afield!

I see Canada Geese every day. Perhaps, like me, you assume that the flock you see at a given location is comprised of the same individuals. After all, how can you tell one goose from another? Still, I make it a point to look through the flock for any bird that stands out due to size or coloration or better yet, a band. On Friday, as I drove into Haverford College, two pieces of metal gleamed in the sunlight from the legs of two geese at the edge of the flock. I grabbed the scope, my assistant herder, Kristen, and spent 45 minutes before successfully reading the numbers on the bands of the two birds who were clearly in each other’s company. Because the band numbers were only 15 digits apart, I knew they had been banded together. I entered the numbers into the reportband.gov site and was immediately rewarded:

Band Number: 0998-46285 Species: CANADA GOOSE

Date banded: 08/02/2007

Banding Location: 12 W PAMIOK ISLAND, QUEBEC, CANADA

Age: HATCHED IN 2006 OR EARLIER Sex: MALE

Band Number: 0998-46270 Species: CANADA GOOSE

Date banded: 08/02/2007

Banding Location: 12 W PAMIOK ISLAND, QUEBEC, CANADA

Age: HATCHED IN 2006 OR EARLIER Sex: FEMALE

Wow! This must be a mated pair. A quick Google search revealed the location of the banding, about as far north on land as you could go, right up to the Labrador Sea. How cool! This pair, now at least 6 years old, really were Canadian. They tended to the edge of the flock. Were they just visiting and associating with a group of local birds? Was the entire flock from elsewhere? How long had these two been with the campus birds? So many more questions had to go unanswered.

Saturday, the weather was nice and too many human visitors roamed the campus. The geese spent most of their time in the water: no exposed legs for me to read. In the quiet of Sunday morning, the flock was once again on the lawn. I spied the two banded birds at the perimeter and then started searching through the remaining geese. Hooray; another one with a band! After nearly an hour of study, with the aid of one herding child, I had read the complete number of the upside-down band. The four-digit prefix hinted at a different origin. Back to technology for an answer:

Band Number: 1028-75828 Species: CANADA GOOSE

Date banded: 06/26/2006

Banding Location: DELAWARE BAY PARK, LAKE DARDANELLE, YELL COUNTY, ARKANSAS, USA

Age: HATCHED IN 2005 OR EARLIER Sex: FEMALE

Arkansas! Who would have thought? Two visitors from the north and now one with a southern drawl . . . in the same flock. This individual was not associating with any other banded bird, but, again, was more at the edge than in the middle of the flock. It did, however, work its way in two or three deep at times. I had barely written the number down and motioned to Kristen to come back toward me when loud honking filled the air. I turned to look at what was exciting the geese and spotted an adult Bald Eagle coming in over the pond, just above the treetops. The geese erupted in a whir of wings and headed straight for the safety of the pond. I guess they figured an eagle would be less likely to grab a goose from the water. The eagle turned and soared overhead, surveying the scene, then drifted off toward my house. By the time I had carried the scope down the street, it was circling over my yard, and a beautiful adult it was! I wondered where it had come from. It had abruptly ended my goose-watching, but I’ll be out looking another day, hoping to get some photos of banded geese, and perhaps find yet another visitor from far afield.

Sheryl

Glen Providence Park Big Year

     As a reminder to everyone, this year the Friends of Glen Providence Park are conducting a big year effort in the park to find how many species can be seen during 2012.  So far we have counted 34 species. To help out with that project, and to introduce people to the park,  I have volunteered to lead a bird walk at Glen Providence Park on Sunday, February 5, 2012. You can see the friends website with the details at http://glenprovidencepark.org/ . Please come out and help support this effort. After the walk in the park I will also be going to Middletown Township Memorial Park also in Media for an add on bird walk. 

Hoping for something good!

The Winner Is . . ..

. . . . Carl Perretta . . . congratulations! Thanks to all who participated in our bird quiz, Ornithology for Olympiads, at the January BCDC meeting. I'm sorry the program ran long, but at least the system seemed to work well. You were a good group of guinea "fowl." (?) The top five finishers in order were: Carl, Al Guarente, Alice Sevareid, Nick Pulcinella and the Roache Team. If you would like to know how you did, email me and I can look up the percent correct associated with your clicker. Hope you had fun and thanks to all who brought food. See you next month.

New's Year Day Field Trip with BCDC

Snow Buntings at Indian River Inlet

     What a good day to go birding. The weather was great. Sunny with just a little chill in the air to remind us that winter is here. We started as usual with a stop at Port Mahon Rd and quickly found a Short-eared Owl and heard a Great Horned Owl hooting. I didn't want to waste too much time here so we headed down to Fowlers Beach which is the northern part of Prime Hook Refuge. We were able to get Dunlins, Black-bellied Plovers, Greater Scaups, Red-throated Loon, Bald Eagles and about 50,000 Snow Geese.

A Small Part of 50,000 Snow Geese

      Our next stop was Indian River inlet. This is the stop that I look forward to the most. Although we came up short here on rarities we did have lots of Bonaparte's Gull, Boat-tailed Grackles, Ruddy Turnstones, Sanderlings, Purple Sandpipers and Surf Scoters. At Silver Lake we found the usual 1000 Canvasbacks and two Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

Canvasback at Silver Lake

       

      This year we added 11 new species that we have never seen on this trip before. I think that is quite remarkable. One of those birds was at the Cape Henlopen nature center. We stopped there to look for Brown-headed Nuthatch which we eventually did find along with about 100 Snow Bunting across the street in the field.

       While searching for the nuthatch we spotted a white bird in the bush behind the feeder. It turned out to be a House Finch that was almost pure white. But before we saw the white House Finch one of the first birds that appeared at the feeder was a Dickcissel. This was probably the best of the new birds added this year and is pictured below. By the way all photos were taken by Nick & Sharon Pulcinella.

Dickcissel

        After Cape Henlopen we went up to Broadkill Beach and found several more thousand Snow Geese and finally found a Ross's Goose among that flock. We could not find a Greater White-fronted Goose that was suppose to be in the vicinity. On Prime Hook Rd we added more new birds never seen on this trip before. We had American Avocets, Dowitchers and two male Eurasian Wigeons. We ended the trip with 82 species making our twelve year average 80.3 species, so we finished a little above average.We had thirteen participants this year.  

Rufous Hummingbird Recaptured in Northampton County, Pa

Male Rufous Hummingbird

      Scott Weidensaul, who is one of Pennsylvania's most renowned hummingbird banders, was fortunate to recapture a male Rufous Hummingbird in Northhampton County on Monday November 14, 2011. To his surprise the bird was already banded. Read his story below.

     Thanks to Rick Wiltraut, I was able to capture the adult male rufous hummingbird coming to a feeder at Jacobsburg State Park this afternoon. The bird was already banded - and it wasn't one of the bands that I or my subs (Sandy Lockerman and Ember Jandebeur) use. A foreign recovery of a hummingbird is a first for me in 10 years and several thousand hummingbirds, so I'm pretty psyched. Despite missing some feathers from the back right side of his head (somewhere there's a hungry but unlucky sharp-shinned hawk), the bird was in good shape, and it was my pleasure to release it from the palm of Rick's lovely mother, who was there for the fun.

  I just reported the band to the Bird Banding Lab's website, something I do dozens of times a year for saw-whet owls but rarely with such anticipation. Unfortunately, the BBL does not have any information on the bird, meaning that the original bander hasn't yet reported the banding. That tells me he was probably only banded in the past couple of months.
 
  I'm also going to report the band number to the hummingbird banding listserve, which most of the hummer banders belong to - hopefully the bander will get in touch with me about it, and we'll figure out where this little guy came from.

The story continues:

  I just learned that the rufous hummer reported by Rick Wiltraut, and which I caught today at Jacobsburg State Park in Northampton County, was banded Jan. 9, 2011 in River Ridge, Louisiana by famed hummingbird bander Nancy Newfield. Although he's now in full adult plumage, he was an immature male at the time, so we know he was born in the summer of 2010, and is on his second migration.

  Nancy is the one who really started banding and studying these western vagrant hummingbirds back in the 1970s, and she's been a friend and colleague since I got into hummer-banding in 2001. To catch one of Nan's birds up here is a particular treat.

  My guess is this male spent the summer on his breeding grounds in the Pacific Northwest, northern Rockies or Alaska, and is on his way back to the Gulf region, taking this circuitous eastern route that more and more of them appear to be using. Nancy said she caught him last winter in one of her best yards (some of these properties get nine or 10 western hummers of several species), and I hope he checks in with her when he arrives back in Lousee-anna.
 
     Posted with permission from Scott Weidensaul.

Cape May Weekend Extravaganza

     Gary Becker and I enjoyed a two day stay at Cape May on Friday and Saturday. We started in Brigantine on Friday morning and were treated to quite a display of hunting by a family of three Peregrine Falcons. They would dive down of flocks of Green-winged Teals which were in flight and the teals would go head first out of the air and into the water with a big splash. Dunlin, Greater Yellowlegs, Semipalmated Sandpiper and Black-bellied Plovers padded the trip list and along with thousands of Brant and a few Snow Geese and Hooded Mergansers. But the fun didn't start until we arrived in Cape May. 

Western Kingbird (Click to Enlarge)

     Almost as soon as we arrived we noticed people stopped on the side of Sunset Blvd. It turns out that they had spotted a Western Kingbird. The bird was real cooperative and allowed for photos as it would propel itself into the air and retrieve a delicious insect for a snack. We then head to the bunker pond and the hawk watch. The pond was filled with Am Wigeon, Gadwall, Am Coots and many Tree Swallow circling above.

American Coots

Gadwall and American Wigeon

     We went over to Lily Lake next and as luck was with us I picked up a new state bird, a Cackling Goose. At this point we retired for the day because the lighting was disappearing quickly. Plans for tomorrow were to catch the first ferry to Lewes, Delaware to do a poor man's pelagic trip crossing the Delaware Bay.

Gary Becker waiting for a Lifer

      We boarded the ferry for the first crossing of the day at 7:30AM. Almost immediately we spotted dozens of Gannets. We were lucky to find a few Bonaparte's Gulls also. We would end the day with a total of seven species of gulls. 

Northern Gannet getting ready to attack Gary

      As we were crossing the bay we would add all three species of Scoters, Common Loon, Lesser Black-backed Gull and Long-tailed Ducks. As we were approaching the jetties outside of the Lewes docking area I noticed a small gull coming towards the ferry. I told Gary to get on this bird because it was probably another Bonaparte's. But as it zipped by I saw the "M" shape black markings on the upperwings and yelled to Gary that it was an immature Black-legged Kittiwake. We could also see the black necklace across the top of the nape. This was Gary's lifer and only the second one I have in Delaware.
      After we docked again in Cape May we finished up birding and didn't really add too much in the way of new birds so we headed home. It was a delightful two days.