I park at the second pulloff at 5:21 AM to have a few hours in the deepest woods before work. It’s jet black and still silent; I strap on the headlamp and scramble upslope, off-trail, the quickest route to the confluence area of Greenbriar and Bird Count trails, one of the best spots around for Mourning and Kentucky warblers. After a few minutes, Eastern Towhees can be heard—they’re the earliest songster in these woods, and they’re soon joined by the first Wood Thrush (5:25) along Ten Springs Trail, then Northern Cardinals and an Ovenbird.
At 5:34 I reach the spot, just as a Scarlet Tanager gives its first ‘chip-burr’ call. A whole community of American Redstarts lives in here: their territories seem compressed, and they’re flying around and fighting (it seems) well before 6 AM. The forest is open, having been ravaged by selective logging and icestorms decades ago, but there are some tall tulip-trees and others about, with patches of thicker woods, but also acres of multiflora rose, barberry, wild grapevines, and a quickly-growing carpet of mile-a-minute.
Most of the expected breeding warblers have sounded off by 6 AM and are moving about to feed, but none of the real rarities are around, so I decide to amble down-trail. That ‘weesy-weesy-weesy’ sounds a bit off for a Black-and-white Warbler, and indeed, it’s an early Bay-breasted Warbler, one of my favorites, from somewhere high in the trees (PH200 #160). Later, I detect two more and see a male up close.
The One That Got Away (For Now)
Great-crested Flycatchers seem more common this year than in the past, but it could be that all the ones I’m hearing are moving on to other locations. We’ll see how many are around in June. This morning, they’re ‘reep’-ing from the treetrops all about. But otherwise, the flycatchers are lagging, as always. I’m still Oh-for-Five on rare (for the hotspot) flycatchers: Yellow-bellied, Willow, Alder, Olive-sided, and Eastern Kingbird. Of course, the most iconic of all summer dawn songs, and the earliest, the Eastern Wood-Pewee, is still missing, but it’s sure to be here at the latest by next week. As for the Acadian, we are days, maybe even hours, from a Hollow filled with ‘pizza.’ But I’ll be chasing the rare species until the end of month, after most everything else has been detected.
And then I (think) I hear it, from a deep and damp thicket below the trail! From the exact spot I got our first record of Yellow-bellied Flycatcher a couple years ago; this time, what I hear seems to match that ‘chebec’-ish call that isn’t a Least Flycatcher. But I don’t see it, and my cellphone audio is not sufficient for the ID, so I let it go. I suspect that it comes through here every year, but has been largely overlooked. (It’s not so bad—last year, I had to let a suspected Summer Tanager go. This always happens.)
Trust, but Verify
I run Merlin’s sound detector on and off because it is a help for some species, but it picks less than a third of what I can hear. But just as it thinks every catbird and thrasher is a Northern Mockingbird, it also constantly mis-id’s Red-eyed Vireos, which are back in ever-growing numbers, as Philadelphia Vireos. However, Merlin does help my brain sort through the ever-growing list of warbler buzzes, with their female as well as male vocalizations.
I have returned to the Hanging Hollow area, where I found the fallout on Saturday, after circling around the top of Sapsucker Ridge. Whatever the food is here, it’s the best on the property, and a mixed flock filled with vireos, warblers, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, tanagers, grosbeaks, and Black-capped Chickadees is dripping from the trees all about. Two more new warblers, a female Blackpoll Warbler (PH200 #159) and a Cape May Warbler (PH200 #161), both silent, afford me brief glimpses.
All too soon, it’s time to scramble back down to the road, where the calls from higher up are muffled by the sound of the stream. But nearby Winter Wrens in the downed tree tangles, Blackburnian Warblers in the hemlocks, and of course Louisiana Waterthrushes, still clamor to be heard.
A couple miles exclusively in the Plummer’s Hollow forest yield ‘just’ 50 species by 8 AM, giving a good idea of the richness away from edges, fields, and towns.
Big Year Update
I’m running out of ‘easy’ new warbler species for the Plummer’s Hollow 200, with only Blue-winged, Canada, and Wilson’s to go in the spring, and Connecticut in the fall. No sign of Prairie, Blue-winged, Golden-winged, Kentucky, or Mourning yet, but at least the first two should show up at some point.
Later in the day, Mom reports hearing the first Yellow-billed Cuckoo (PH200 #162). (As with many of the other breeding species, I’ll have a lot more to say about it after May Madness has passed.)
The list of new ‘easy’ species for the year yet to detect is slimming by the day (combining what I should be seeing with what should be popping up on the NFC microphone). Remaining are: Eastern Wood-Pewee; Acadian Flycatcher; Purple Martin; Prairie and Blue-winged warblers (visual); Common Nighthawk; Canada Warbler (visual/NFC); Wilson’s Warbler (visual/NFC); Eastern Kingbird; Orchard Oriole; Lincoln’s Sparrow; Philadelphia Vireo; Gray-cheeked Thrush (NFC, mostly fall); Least Bittern (NFC); Semipalmated Sandpiper (NFC); Semipalmated Plover (NFC); Least Sandpiper (NFC); Pectoral Sandpiper (NFC); Bonaparte’s Gull (NFC or visual); Red-headed Woodpecker (NFC or visual); American Black Duck (on the pond in Nov.); Dunlin (NFC). Based on past data, I expect to detect all 22 of these, pushing the PH200 to 184.
More problematic are the following 20: Pine Siskin (visual/NFC); Evening Grosbeak (visual/NFC); Willow, Alder, Yellow-bellied, and Olive-sided Flycatchers (visual or diurnal recorded); Yellow-breasted Chat (visual or diurnal recorded); Black Tern (NFC); Common Tern (NFC); Mourning, Kentucky, and Golden-winged warblers (visual or diurnal recorded); White-eyed Vireo (visual); Dickcissel (NFC); Red Crossbill (visual). Misses from spring: Northern Saw-whet Owl (nocturnal recorded); Snow Goose (NFC); Rough-legged Hawk. Two more late fall migrants are also possible: Lapland Longspur and Snow Bunting. Clearly, I need to detect the bulk of these.
Though it looks like the margin for error is pretty slim, it is also probable that new hotspot species will be added as well, obviating the need for some of the score of sticklers. Already this year, Barn Owl and Common Loon were previously-recorded hotspot species I hadn’t anticipated, while Bufflehead, Ring-necked Duck, Caspian Tern, Common Gallinule, Sora, and Wilson’s Snipe were all new. Most likely, new species will be shorebirds, I think.
Last but not least are the recorded hotspot species I rank in the slim-to-none chance category: Northern Goshawk; Long-eared Owl; Pine Grosbeak; White-winged Crossbill; Common Redpoll; Ruddy Duck; White-winged Scoter; Pied-billed and Horned grebes; Swallow-tailed Kite; Northern Shrike; Summer Tanager. But anything is possible…
Swallow-tailed Kite photographed over Snyder Co a couple days ago.
Re - your comment on the SUTA you missed - reminded me, I was looking through Blair Co and Plummers Hollow bar charts: There are two records for SUTA, which I am sure refer to the same bird, but one with a mistaken date. One date, listed at "Tyrone" (entered from Nick and my book) is 5/1/87 and the second presumably your entry for Plumber's Hollow with date given as 5/11/87. One or the other of us apparently mis-typed. In either case you can be sure of having the correct date and keep your entry, and I can delete the Tyrone entry (whether date right or wrong).