2024: The First Week
Jan. 1 (Mon). AM: 12 species (balcony, 49 min). PM: 22 species (5-mi., 4-hr hike).
Jan. 2 (Tues). AM: 11 spp. (balcony, 33 min).
Jan. 3 (Wed). AM: 7 spp. (2.5-mi., 1-hr hike).
Jan 4 (Thurs). AM: 14 spp. (balcony, 42 min).
Jan 5 (Fri). AM: 11 spp. (balcony, 40 min).
Jan 6 (Sat). AM: 27 spp. (5-mi., 3.3-hr hike).
Jan 7 (Sun). AM: 12 spp. (1-mi., 1-hr hike).
On New Years’ Day, the ridgetops are frosted with wet snow, though Tyrone, down in its bowl, is all brown. On the year’s first balcony pace, nothing calls from the bushes, but the regulars are about in the sky, including a Cooper’s Hawk. Olga (my mother-in-law) and Pepe the Cat have never seen snow, so we drive up the Janesville Pike high enough to play around in the frosting, then swing down past the Tipton Reservoir and thence over the Skelp Cut out to Sinking Valley to visit an Amish store for quilts. I don’t get to my traditional New Year’s hike until after lunch.
The pond is my first stop, where the Green-winged Teal is still hanging about with 22 Mallards. The Hollow is silent, but for the faint calls of chickadees and titmice far above in the canopy, moving through the catkins.
As expected, the action is in the south-facing jungles on Sapsucker Ridge. The “ten springs” area is filled with seeps and thick patches of barberry, and hearing noises ahead, I freeze and pish. Northern Cardinals, White-throated Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, and American Robins flush from the ground and undergrowth by the dozens, along with some 40 Red-winged Blackbirds, a rare sight in our winter woods. They perch together obligingly in a near tree, but then go clucking off to the next feed. Later, I watch them more closely—mostly stripy-breasted females, with a handful of males—feeding on wild grapes. A trio of Cedar Waxwings are about as well, also attracted to the grapes: this was a species I didn’t see on the mountain at all last January.
I follow Greenbriar to Bird Count trail and then cut through the woods toward the field, hundreds of birds moving with me through the forest, as I leave the annoyed or curious clucks of Hermit Thrushes and reeps of Eastern Towhees behind me. The field is largely quiet now, so I do a quick circuit to the Far Field. The spruce grove is silent, but on the way back, I intercept a large flock of juncos heading back from Roseberry Hollow to their nocturnal roost in the conifers.
Falcon Trifecta
On Tuesday, the clouds are high and moving fast with stiff winds aloft. The first out is a Mallard, at 7:17 AM. Just after it is light enough to see across to Bald Eagle Mountain, around 7:30, I glimpse a distant drama: a flock of around 20 Rock Pigeons is wheeling about, trying to avoid a Peregrine Falcon. Three Mallards that were commuting from the Gap along the ridgeline north have gotten caught up in the deathtrap as well, and also have to practice their best evasive maneuvers. The whole gray and spectral scene quickly fades from view. A bit later, A Sharp-shinned Hawk and a Common Raven circle together over the Gap.
Wednesday’s hike starts in darkness, straight up the Sapsucker knife-edge. Faint clucking in the gloom gives way to the explosive departures of five Wild Turkeys roosting in the treetops half-way up. At the Point, I swing back down around through the old stone-hauling tracks above town, then head over for another look at the pond. The American Wigeon is here today instead of the teal, along with 27 Mallards.
On Thursday, the windy weather continues, and the world down here in the lowlands continues in shades of gray and brown. As a band of moisture brings some snow flurries, a long-winged, fluttering shape smashes through a flock of Rock Pigeons that was trying to leave town, but is unsuccessful, so it tucks its wings and heads out to the trees above I-99 on Bald Eagle Mountain, where it disappears, presumably to perch. Not more than a minute later, the American Kestrel makes another pass into town, dives at some more pigeons, and then jets back out to the mountain, the last I see of it today. A raven spirals up and around the towers.
At a quarter to eight, the first Common Merganser I’ve seen in many weeks, a male, zooms overhead from the Gap, heading west. American Crows, House Finches, and robins seem to float as they ride the cold breezes this way and that across the sky.
One more windy dawn gets me out early on Friday, just in time to hear the swoosh of a low-flying pigeon flock going the wrong direction, over the balcony and then the confluence, heading south. Sure enough, a missile is following them, exploding in the midst of the tight group just the other side of the river. This time, it’s a Merlin, flying as fast as I’ve ever seen one go. Tyrone’s pigeon buffet must be legendary in these parts to draw in all three falcon species in the winter. Having a good number of robins, House Sparrows, and European Starlings as well probably doesn’t hurt.
It’s colder today, in the low twenties, and the sky finally gets around to clearing up to blue. The Red-winged Blackbirds are still around; almost every morning, I see flocks of them flying over town, moving quickly from their night roost to the mountain forests.
After the 7:27 AM Merlin attack, the pigeons stop commuting for awhile. Normally, flock after flock would be flying up from downtown, circling a couple times, then heading over Bald Eagle Mountain. Finally, at a quarter to eight, a lone pigeon flies up nearly out of sight over downtown and commences circling and weaving about—a sentinel, perhaps, or some sort of sacrifice? Gradually, its looping motions take it over the Gap where it finds a straight-flying American Crow, and it flies close to the crow, both disappearing to the east. A few minutes later, pigeons in twos and three start commuting again.
At 8:06, the first rays of sun filter across from Laurel Ridge, over the interstate, and strafe the top of the 10:30 poplar, where a boisterous group of around ten starlings have gathered to sing. This is the first time I’ve seem gathered like this; they don’t seem to do so on the gloomy days.
Rush Hour of the Juncos
All week, the weather stations have been abuzz with the impending winter storm—not a Snow-mageddon or Snowpocalypse to scare folks with this time, but still, more than is usually seen in these parts anymore. I hit the Hollow as nautical dawn begins, and am sitting above the garage, sipping on bone broth, six minutes before the sparrows begin to move. When I passed Dave’s house, he mentioned that he heard an Eastern Screech-Owl last evening.
The first White-throated Sparrows call at 7:11 AM, and over the next 20 minutes, they along with Songs are singing, calling, and flying about the field. Every few minutes, I hear a whistle overhead and look to my right to watch a Mourning Dove, commuting from Grazierville, tuck its wings and dive down toward the newly-replenished feeders. Right in front of my face, dozens of juncos are whizzing by at top speed, to plunge into the forsythia by the garage, their first stop. They’re a bit leery of me as they run through a plethora of vocalizations, popping out every now and again to feed on the gravel driveway.
A Fox Sparrow, quite rare in winter, sings three times from the Sapsucker Ridge tangles. After 7:30, sparrow activity ceases for a few minutes, and American Goldfinches start up. One perched in a nearby black walnut emits a querulous call, and another answers out in the field They call back and forth for half a minute. Far off, a Great Horned Owl hoots.
I get up to pace the yard. The walnut grove is a bird vortex for this part of Plummer’s Hollow in the winter, and the trees are already alive with White-breasted Nuthatches, Downy and Red-bellied woodpeckers, a singing Eastern Bluebird, singing and calling Black-capped Chickadees and Tufted Titmice, and many others. The nuthatches, without a doubt, are the loudest.
Through the walnut canopy, just before eight, I glimpse a silent flock of robins overhead, wandering north. Before I can finish counting them, another flock appears, and then another. The spectacle continues for 25 minutes, with flocks of up to 100 birds, barely making a sound, all coming from the south. Perhaps they’re moving ahead of the snowstorm, which hasn’t made it here but is churning northward a few miles away. In all, nearly 900 robins pass over, and though I hope to find them later along Greenbriar, it looks like they kept moving. The number is more than double the total of 404 that was the Plummer’s Hollow and Blair County all-time high count on Dec. 19, 1998, though not within orders of magnitude of a 2016 Pennsylvania record of 100,000 (possible as high as 500,000) in Northampton County. It’s amazing to see these robin concentrations in the winter, remembering how every square foot of territory is fought over in the breeding months, with robins staging nightly matches along invisible territory lines below the balcony. As always, I’m reminded of people.
The bulk of the field bird crowd is now strung out between the garage and the neck of First Field. American Goldfinches are a lot more common than last year at this time, with at least 45 hanging about, and no less than one Pine Siskin. Somewhere in the depths of a shrub, out of sight beyond the barn, a Northern Mockingbird is making noise. We had one two years again that adopted the grounds as its winter territory; usually, this species sticks to the lowlands.
Storm Birds
The snow starts around noon. As promised, it lays deep and crisp and even. Six inches, anyway. In the thick of the storm, a Cooper’s Hawk chases a dozen Rock Pigeons around the confluence.
On Sunday, Paola and I slog through the slushy, crusting snow down to the pond, but there’s no open water. As a consolation prize, a pair of the year’s first Red-tailed Hawks circles overhead, as several Blue Jays make noise. To end the week, I hear the first Canada Geese of 2024 not long after 6 PM as they pass over Tyrone, toward the Gap.
Where We Stand
Ending our first week, the 2024 species total is 49, matching last year’s mark. In January 2023, Plummer’s Hollow logged 57 species, and absent some miracle, this year should be around the same number. January is the sparsest month, with just 79 species recorded in the hotspot since 1971, but February (82) and December (85) aren’t far behind.