American Kestrel, photo by copeg. Today was the day of the American Kestrel. It started at 10 am and by the time I finished counting at 6 pm, 28 of these light weight, Microtus–killing machines had flown past. That was counting 10 in the last hour, and four birds in the last few minutes of that hour. This is a … Read More
Hungry Accipiters
I really wish I had a picture for this post. I guess that will have to wait until I manage to get a dSLR camera with a nice 300mm fixed lens. Anyways… Standing in one spot for a whole day gives me quite a chance to observe things that I don’t ordinarily get to see. I was up at the … Read More
The Watch is about to begin, what’s up with this weather
Tomorrow marks day one of the Montclair Spring Hawk Watch, weather permitting. After reaching about 75°F today the thunderclouds are rolling in and we might get a good storm tonight. Thats all good but what about this…snow on Friday? That could make things really interesting. Well, hopefully I will have some reports soon and some pictures to go along with … Read More
Smith’s Longspur
Well, I didn’t miss this one. Seems like everyone else got to see the Smith’s Longspur in the blogosphere- City Birder, Mike from 10000birds.com, Jersey Birder, etc. I was pretty sure that I was going to come up short again after searching for over an hour and only seeing Snow Buntings and Horned Larks. I had also wanted to see … Read More
The Ballet of the Shorties
Short-eared Owls have been on my want list for Pennsylvania for quite some time. I had several opportunities to see them while in college in northern Indiana and greatly enjoyed that. Then I got a tip on where they might be in my own county. My own county! Now some people might not understand that thrill, but having just recently … Read More
The Croissant-shaped bird
I got out today and did some of my first birding in Maryland, but was sorely disappointed. The weather had turned bloody cold but there are still no ducks around. Maybe they don’t get ducks out here? I guess that is a possibility. I did manage to pick up some year birds including a Pileated Woodpecker for #72. That is … Read More
Year birds, state birds and a lifer
Yesterday I spent the day cruising the gull scene around Tullytown, Pa which is home to a rather massive dump. Larophiles know that dumps can often attract large numbers of gulls and this dump is no exception, attracting one of the largest numbers of Lesser Black-backed Gulls of anyplace in the Americas. My goal was to find a few white … Read More
Another Ontelaunee sunset
I headed to Lake Ontelaunee again this evening to witness the growing numbers of gulls roosting on the lake. Apparently most of them are spending their days near a dump in Morgantown and then headed to Ontelaunee to roost. This evening there were again almost 2000 gulls, this time with a high percentage of Herrings than last time. I estimated … Read More
Ontelaunee Black-backed Gulls
Today was a good day for gulls at Ontelaunee. When I arrived there were several hundred circling around in the air, giving a shimmering effect when they banked and caught the sunlight just right. They almost gave the impression of snow. While they were getting their act together and collecting to a more impressive flock of 1600 or so, I … Read More
First miss of the year and FOY sightings
Well, I went to go find the Western Kingbird again. I figured it was so easy the first time, why not try to get it for this year’s list. It is an attractive bird anyways, so it would be nice to see again. Well, no such luck for me today. I arrived and a Herb from Lancaster County was already … Read More