Mid-October offers Pennsylvania birders an opportunity to try and find a rather rare migrant though our state, the Nelson’s Sparrow. This fall it seems weather conditions and increased birder effort has created a bit of a Nelson’s Sparrow infux, with over 20 individual birds reported around the state at this point. Tim Becker found the first of the fall on … Read More
Failed chase, waterfowl, and a dark Rough-legged Hawk
My friends and I were bummed that we had missed out on a very chase-able Eurasian Wigeon during the spring and thought we had lost our chase to get that species for our PA state lists. That was until last week, when a male Eurasian Wigeon was reported at Yellow Creek SP, which is about 1.5 hrs from State College. … Read More
Birds to Look For – Centre Co, PA (Last week of March)
This coming weekend marks the beginning of the last week of March. April is so close and beginning in just the first week of April, we will see huge pushes of newly-arriving spring migrants into our area. This last week of March is very important too, however, and I have tried to go through eBird bar charts for Centre County … Read More
Centre County Waterfowl Report 2/29/12
Many of us here in Centre County have brought up the idea of trying to coordinate efforts on rainy days when waterfowl could get forced down, by checking every single body of water in the county during the same block of hours, and trying to get a full picture of how the storm affected waterfowl migration. Today everything fell into … Read More
Storm Birding 8/28/11
With ‘Hurricane Irene’ moving up the east coast, and coming in it’s closest contact yet with Pennsylvania today all of us Centre County birders were excited to see if it would cause any interesting birds to stop at Bald Eagle State Park or any of the other water bodies in the county. Anna and I got to Bald Eagle early … Read More
Merlin vs Bat
Soon after I arrived at Colyer Lake to look for the previously reported Red-throated Loon, I noticed a slate-blue male Merlin perched along the shore. After getting a first shot, it took off from its perch, flew about 100 feet and snatched a bat out of mid-air before returning. Then it proceeded to nosh down on the bat while i … Read More
Tundra Swans and Red-throated Loon at Colyer Lake
On my way home from seeing the Anna’s Hummingbird, Cattle Egret, White-winged Crossbill, I found out that Nan Butkovitch had reported a Red-throated Loon at Colyer Lake. Not having that for the year in PA I decided to stop. In addition to the Red-throated Loon, 31 Tundra Swans came in while I was there and a merlin caught and eat … Read More