I spent an afternoon on the Conejohela Flats on the Susquehanna River yesterday. The water behind the dam was amazingly low, resulting in acres of mud. This benefited the birds by giving them more foraging habitat but made it a bit more difficult to get close looks at the birds. Least Sandpipers and Dunlin outnumbered everything else. A couple dozen … Read More
New citizen science project to add to your schedule
This past February, the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA) initiated the Winter Raptor Survey, a volunteer effort to determine winter abundances of raptors. The purpose according to the association’s website “is to get birders/raptor enthusiasts out in the field during the winter looking for diurnal raptors, and to provide those surveyors with a set of guidelines enabling them … Read More
Banding the Saw-whets
female Northern Saw-whet Owl A few nights ago I had the opportunity to help band saw-whet owls at a Girl Scout camp close to Halifax, PA. This excited me because, although saw-whet owls are one of the commonest owls in Canada and the northern US, I have rarely seen them. These owls are tiny, with the males only weighing as … Read More
The Moth Invasion of `07
Gypsy Moth Lymantria dispar It’s particularly bad this year. At least I don’t remember noticing the large swathes of mountainside that were nearly absent of any green. While the gypsy moth caterpillar can be a real boon to birds such as cuckoos which feast on the insects, they can also cause tremendous damage to their hosts which include oaks and … Read More
Great Turtle Race
Get This Widget!Great Turtle Race So I found this great website where you can follow The Great Turtle Race. It’s a little more fun than Rat Race but maybe not quite as exciting. Eleven Leatherback Sea Turtles are being tracked from the coast of Costa Rica on their journey to the Galapagos Islands. You are encouraged to cheer for one … Read More
Eastern population of Golden Eagles being tracked
The National Aviary in Pittsburgh and Powdermill Avian Research Center are both working on satellite tracking several Golden Eagles that were trapped this fall near the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch near Bedford, PA. I was lucky enough to be in the trapping blind for a day when 39 Golden Eagles and 1 Bald Eagle migrated past but unfortunately we only … Read More
Study reveals further declines for the world’s waterbirds
In the somber news category, the fourth edition of the Wetlands International report on waterbird species around the world has been released. It’s based on annual field surveys by 15,000 voluntary expert observers across hundreds of sites worldwide, including many IBA’s. Of the 878 species that they present estimates and trends for, 44% are either decreasing or have become extinct … Read More
How to count birds
Snow Geese flock, originally uploaded by topherous. Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird site has just posted Bird Counting 101. For anyone who spends time out in the field watching large flocks, whether they are shorebirds, waterfowl or hawks knows that estimating flock size can be ridiculously hard. Just looking at the flock of Snow Geese above is overwhelming if you … Read More
Vulture chick brings hope
For those of you who follow bird news around the globe, you are probably aware that vulture populations have crashed to an unsustainable level due to the widespread use of the veterinary medicine, diclofenac. Three species of vultures- the White-Rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis), Indian Vulture (Gyps indicus) and Slender-billed Vulture (Gyps tenuirostris) declined by more that 95 percent in just … Read More
Natty Geo Hummingbirds
The last National Geographic has a great article on hummingbirds with some of the most beautiful hummingbird photographs I have ever seen. Apparently, these hummingbirds are captured, carried to the photographers SUV which is equipped with flowers and proceeds to photograph them. The goal is to document all the species of hummingbirds in order to better conserve them. To see … Read More