Over the past two weeks I was happy to take many birders and bird-photographers out to the Conejohela Flats along the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County, PA. Although there were multiple days with morning or evening storms, almost all of my scheduled trips went along as planned, and I was able to get out to the flats with people on a … Read More
Little Creek: Delaware’s Shorebird Hotspot for 2014
Alan Kneidel received a B.A. in Biology from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2008. He has since contributed to a variety of research projects, spanning from the Arctic to tropical South America. He is currently a Master’s student at Delaware State University, focusing on the spring stopover ecology of trans-Gulf songbird migrants on St. George Island, Florida. While … Read More
Birding Delaware: Indian River Inlet to Bombay Hook
Two Sundays ago, Alex and I, along with Chad Kaufman, Taj Schottland, Steve Brenner, and Mel Torres tore it up in southern Delaware. We didn’t plan on doing a Big Day but instead were planning on a full day of casual, relaxed birding. After a late night of birding and hanging out at Dogfish Head, we started the morning searching … Read More
Delaware Day Trip
On August 12th Chad Kauffman, Andy McGann, Jason Weller, and I traveled down to Delaware to check out various shorebird hotspots as well as try to boost our personal Delaware state lists. There was also quite a bit of lifer potential for Jason which always makes a trip more fun because I love helping people see a species for the … Read More
Cape May Trip – Part 1
Back in August, word quickly spread that a Brown Booby was found in Jarvis Sound in Cape May. I wanted to go see it so badly, but was too busy with other things to find time to drive down there. By some miracle the bird continued throughout September and was still being seen every day so far in October. Everyone … Read More
10 Shorebird Species on N. Nixon Rd, Centre County
I had a large gap between classes today, so I decided to go check on the American Golden-Plovers that were found the night before on N. Nixon Road. I spent from 9:50am till 1:oopm scanning through the large collection of shorebirds present, trying to pick out each individual and get an accurate count. Meticulously searching paid off when I found … Read More
Six Species of Shorebirds at BESP
This morning, I made a very quick run out to Bald Eagle State Park to see if any interesting birds were put down by the storm at the swimming beach. As soon as I pulled up to the beach parking area, I saw some Caspian Terns loafing with a few gulls. The Caspian Tern group contained 2 adults, 1 juvenile, … Read More
Semipalmated Plovers and Sanderlings at BESP
Yesterday afternoon Nate Fronk reported Sanderlings, Semipalmated Plovers, and Semipalmated Sandpipers at the Bald Eagle State Park swimming beach. I wasn’t able to run over yesterday, but first thing this morning Josh Lefever, Mark Mizak, Ian Gardner and I drove over and met up with Nate and Drew Weber. Four juvenile Sanderlings and two adult Semipalmated Plovers were foraging on … 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
BESP 8/25/11 – Forster’s Terns, Common Loon, etc
I made a quick run over to Bald Eagle State Park this morning and was rewarded with a few interesting species; two Forster’s Terns (a juvenile and an adult at the swimming beach), a very early Common Loon, two juvenile Semipalmated Sandpipers, and a Least Sandpiper. The Common Loon, which was a 1st summer bird, this is the third record … Read More