End of December Bird Round-up
In just two days, I’ll be jumping into the Plummer’s Hollow 200, so before that happens I would like to provide you a little background on the status of our birds at the end of this particular December. You know, the one where the weather went from sub-zero temps on the 25th to the 50s a week later?
What’s Happening These Days?
Since 1971, we’ve recorded 78 total species in December, dropping to just 66 in January and rising only slightly to 70 in February with the first northward migrant trickle. This is in contrast to the highest month, May, with 173, and 99 or more every other month.
December’s numbers have benefited from the annual Christmas Bird Count, an all-out mid-month onslaught that turns up hold-over birds that haven’t yet moved out of the area for milder climes. These tend to disappear in January: I’d like to think they head somewhere warmer, but it could be some simply perish. Here we’re talking Eastern Towhee, Gray Catbird, Eastern Phoebe, and their ilk.
On the bright side, we get more time to observe (easily! no leaves!) the 40-odd species that never leave as well as others just here for the winter, like the American Tree Sparrow and Dark-eyed Junco.
Birds move around a lot during the winter as water bodies freeze and thaw and food sources become depleted. Right now, we’ve still got plenty of wild grapes as well as invasives such as mile-a-minute the birds can gorge on. We’ll see how this buffet holds up in January. For the less shy species there are also Mom’s back-porch feeders, where she has been conducting Feederwatch for 35 years.
Balcony Preview
In bird movements, nothing stays the same from day to day, but there is a certain predictability. We’ll see what carries through into January 1st here at the northwestern edge of the hotspot. Right now (sunrise at 7:37 AM), I can count on a pair of Mourning Doves rocketing from town to some distant feeder in Sinking Valley, or perhaps to my Mom’s up on the mountain, around 7:05 AM. Then a solitary Common Raven croaks several times from its nighttime roost in the old brick Bald Eagle Tannery building near I-99, soon flying right past my balcony heading north. Shortly thereafter, small groups of wild Mallards start their commutes from unfrozen ponds and streams, most heading to feeding locations on the Little Juniata. On Thursday there were only a handful; yesterday there were over 50.
Between 7:10 AM and around 8 AM when the sun (sometimes) finally emerges from behind the northernmost trees of Sapsucker Ridge in Plummer’s Hollow, a mile east of my balcony through the Gap, a couple dozen total species make their appearances, at least through sound. Only about 16 of them can I detect on a given day.
Some, such as a local Great Blue Heron and an immature Bald Eagle, don’t fly over this early every day; their feeding strategies appear to change quite regularly. Others, like a variable number of Tyrone’s 300+ resident Rock Pigeons, make the morning commute to what I assume are Sinking Valley farms very predictably, singly, in pairs, or in flocks up to 40 or more.
Most European Starlings commute the other direction, streaming over Brush Mountain from roosts in Sinking Valley. Recently, I watched a murmuration of around 1,000 in the trees a few meters from my balcony.
I’ll be writing about a lot of common urban species in the coming months: House Finches, House Sparrows, American Robins, Downy Woodpeckers, and others that seem quite comfortable with the considerable din and commotion in this community.
Surprised by Killdeer!
Here’s my checklist from this morning. Instead of my usual balcony sit at the northwest corner, I ventured along the tracks toward Sinking Valley and the northeast corner to see where the dawn mallards have been landing. Both Carolina and Winter wrens as well as Song Sparrow sang at dawn, and a bit later, Tufted Titmouse and Black-capped Chickadees also sang. The highlight was a single Killdeer calling from a field in the valley around 7 AM - I believe this is the first record of this species from the hotspot from this time of year.
Winter Woods Birds
Up in the deeper Plummer’s Hollow woods, numerous predators, including Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks, several owls, and some resident mammals feast on winter birds. Little winter cover is available for their prey, except in the densest shrub thickets, the Norway Spruce plantation at the top of First Field, and some native conifers (White Pine, Eastern Hemlock) in the Hollow and scattered throughout. Also, until they’re beaten down by ice and snow, our goldenrod-choked fields offer decent hiding places as well.
A combination of reduced sources of food and exposure to dangerous predators and weather means far fewer individual birds are out and about than at any other time of the year. Those that are around tend to concentrate in sheltered areas, and often stick together in mixed-species groups. In terms of the Plummer’s Hollow 200, it won’t take me more than a couple of days to log these species for the Big Year. Then comes the first big challenge of 2023.
Invaders from the North
Full disclosure: I’m not depending on any of the first seven listed species below to help me reach my Big Year goal of 200 species, but I will certainly make every effort to find them in January and February. Some I will have another chance at in the Fall, but others not. Over the years, these have included Northern Shrike, Northern Goshawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Long-eared Owl, White-winged Crossbill, Pine Grosbeak, Common Redpoll, Red Crossbill, Pine Siskin, and Evening Grosbeak, with the latter three somewhat likely next Fall. I’ll do what I can.
Where to Find the Data
The Plummer’s Hollow eBird homepage is one-stop shopping for up-to-the-minute data on the hotspot. I’ll be posting my 2023 lists there every day. On the page, you can find all data from 1971 to the present, submitted in the form of “checklists,” many of which are culled from Marcia Bonta’s voluminous nature journals. I utilize my personal eBird account for my own lists, “PHNR Historical Data” for reports from others who don’t use eBird, and “Mark Bonta NFC Station” for the nocturnal flight calls. In addition, on the right hand side you can see other eBirders who have contributed data.
You can click “High Count” to see data on one of my obsessions. I am constantly trying to refine my field census methods to get an accurate idea of the range of numbers of each species present. In the process, the hotspot has gotten many of the high-numbers counts for Blair County and even some for the state.
[Note: If you click on a species name it will take you to general eBird data on it. If you click on a specific date, it will take you to a specific checklist].
Bar Charts and Illustrated Checklist
The Illustrated Checklist provides the current bar chart for each species (see below), a representative photo, if we have one, and audio. If you’re audiovisually equipped, I would be more than happy for you to get involved filling in our many gaps!
Bar Charts give a snapshot of the relative abundance of each species in the hotspot and can be sorted by month, year, or a specific length of time. Each green rectangle represents what I treat as a “sprint.” The sprints are: 1st-7th; 8th-14th; 15th-21st; 22nd-end of month. Where there is no record whatsoever of a species, no green rectangle for that period appears.
Every year, I try to fill in the gaps with new data so that the Bar Charts provide a more accurate picture of bird activity in the hotspot.
Note: if you click “Line Graphs” you can explore Frequency, Abundance, Birds/Hr, High Count, Totals, and Average Count, for each of the 211 species and other taxa we’ve recorded so far. Have fun geeking out on this stuff!
—Tomorrow, I’m off to help on a neighboring Christmas Bird Count in another county. I’ll be back at 7 AM on January 1. See you on the other side!—