Menagerie
An un-melted dusting of flakes on dead leaves lights the way like foxfire along Laurel Ridge trails. Thirty-five degrees. This morning I’m trying a new area: the thickets at the drop-off of Brush Mountain to Sinking Valley. The best vantage point is the powerline cut, where I can see a swath of farmland, hear into the vine tangles, and watch the ridgeline for any birds crossing the mountain. Lights still twinkling: prosperous farms, and the borough of Birmingham farther out.
Roosters, guineas, dogs: Amish and English farms cacophonous even before seven when a Great Horned Owl starts up. Muzzleloader shots boom a few minutes later, the reason to keep wearing blaze orange this late in the season.
Closing in on Fifty
The powerline cut itself is scrub oak and mountain laurel, bedding for vulnerable songbirds. Northern Cardinal is the first singer at 7:09, then calls by a Song Sparrow, some White-throated Sparrow ‘tseeps’, and a Dark-eyed Junco’s ticking. They all rush off, maybe to feeders, and by 7:16 it’s silent again. Far off, an Eastern Screech-Owl (PH200#45) trills.
Tufted Titmouse, distant call, shorn of nuance, sounding almost like one of those small owls. A White-throated Sparrows sings ‘sweet Canada’ once, then a pair of Common Ravens dives toward the valley, crying and grunting, wings touching. 7:28.
At 7:31, the morning’s first ‘teakettle’ (or is it ‘cheeseburger? I can never decide) as the nearest Carolina Wren starts up. Tandem guineas in an unceasing racket; I’m not sure how much of the night they are ever quiet. A Hermit Thrush ‘querts’ from the nearest vine tangle: I never see this one, but it keeps up an intermittent call sequence for over half an hour.
American Crow, White-breasted Nuthatch, American Goldfinch, Blue Jay: all the regulars in quick succession. Maybe a flicker; I’m hoping to get the first of 2023 today as they have quieted down quite a bit and gotten scarce since mid-December. A sound I thought was quiet woodpeckers turns out to be the stirrings and chasings of a pair of Gray Squirrels in nearby trees. Eighty-three European Starlings rush by overhead, a slice of commuter traffic to Tyrone.
On and on goes the Hermit Thrush. We have this species most of the year, except breeding season itself; our forests don’t seem to have enough of what it needs for a nesting territory, though sometimes a singing male will try. But the rest of the year, it is around, though cryptic. I’ll detect hundreds of migrants a night go over the ridge in late October, emitting their soft nocturnal flight call as they descend toward day-time perches.
At 7:42 a Black-capped Chickadee goes up against the third Carolina Wren, then a Red-tailed Hawk does its ‘Hollywood Eagle’ screech. Just seconds later, a Northern Mockingbird (PH200#46) emits its raspy call from the base of the powerline. I had been listening intently for the series of loud ‘checks’ this species typically does at dawn, but if it did make them, the bellowing/braying/whinnying/oinking/baaing/cackling/barking orchestra (and whatever the guinea racket is called) from the nearest farms drowned it out. Odd, this dawn, for me - a world away from the clanking industrial noise of Tyrone just the other side of the mountain, or even the quieter woods in the Hollow, where barnyard sounds rarely make it over the top of the ridge. This dawn would surely be the fascination of a small child!
The mockingbird was a code red species for this year. Last winter, one stayed around the houses for awhile, but usually, it only pops up quite unpredictably for a few hours during migration. However, since I have occasionally heard one on the Sinking Valley sides of Laurel Ridge, I thought just maybe a morning sit would be successful.
Nine American Robins flutter over the ridgetop; a crow calls as it dives from ridgetop to valley. At last, a Northern Flicker from up the ridge: PH200#47. Then, a gobble from deep in a thicket: Wild Turkey on the board for 2023 (PH200#48)! In winter, they spend little if any time in the Hollow, until it comes time to court and breed. (By May, males are strutting and preening above the barn like they own the place.)
At 7:56, another open-country Sinking Valley denizen, an American Kestrel (PH200#49), careens south up Laurel Ridge, just clearing the trees and out of sight.
By 8:10, only crows and ravens are making noise, as sheets of snow cross the valley. Twenty-nine species.
Walking the Line
I head northeast on Laurel Ridge Trail. The ridge is formed by Bald Eagle sandstone, one of those late Ordovician creations yielding a soil too poor for tilling. Those little villages down to my right—Ironville, Tyrone Forge, Nealmont—were born in the devastation of the Juniata Iron era of the early 1800s when the forests were cut, stacked, and burned for charcoal.
Our modern Bald Eagle woods are all grown up in chestnut and other oaks, pitch pine, and black gum, with a scraggly understory of mountain laurel and huckleberries. Spongy moths have hit the oaks hard; woodpeckers are here in numbers. Not much else this time of year but the errant tit or nuthatch. The action, as at the powerline cut, is to the right of me, down on the Sinking Valley side, where sandstone gives way to older, crumbly Reedsville Shale. The Reedsville is great for pastures, brambles, and wild grape tangles, and the southeast-facing slopes get even more sun than the Juniata tangles on Sapsucker Ridge to my west that face the same direction. Tree composition is way more diverse than on the Bald Eagle, but on this cloudy morning, activity has already died down, other than wren after wren and a pair, or perhaps a trio, of Pileated Woodpeckers.
After almost two miles, our property plunges down to the northeast where the ridgeline drops dangerously to the Little Juniata River.
Before I circle back, I want to see if a certain Canada Goose is still looking broody and possessive on the hidden pond this morning, as it was late yesterday afternoon. As I pick my way down, more troglodytes from the riverside—Winter Wren as well as Carolina here.
Yesterday’s 54 Mallards are around 40 right now. The American Wigeon, dwarfed by preening drakes, continues to do its own thing.
The Mallards tolerate but seem to ignore it, as they focus their boisterous activity on each other. The lone Canada is nowhere to be seen. I was surprised to see one this early sitting where a pair nested successfully last year, as that was months later. Perhaps it’s already testing the location.
Completing the Circuit
Back the tracks and up the road. Plummer’s Hollow proper is dead-silent, any distant calls covered over by the rushing stream. A couple calling Brown Creepers stay cryptic, but for the life of me, I can’t detect a Golden-crowned Kinglet. I’ve not scoured the entire hotspot yet this year, but I’ve been in its favorite winter lairs, with no luck. I think there are none around right now.
All the diurnal commotion is around the old homestead where I left the car; you can hear it from a quarter mile away. Birds feed elsewhere than at the feeders, but it nevertheless seems to be a magnet for activity. They crisscross the black walnut grove and the fields to nearby woods edges: White-breasted Nuthatches, chickadees, titmice, House Finches, goldfinches. They also form a buffet of their own for accipiters: Dave tells me later that a Cooper’s Hawk was about at some point in the morning. I can’t be certain, but I suppose it’s not my friend from Tyrone.
Wrapping up the first sprint of the Plummer’s Hollow 200 (January 1-7), the species total sits at 49 for the year. On Sunday, a gorgeous male Wood Duck at the hidden pond makes it 50. The quick and easy 50: the next 50 will take us until early April. I’ll do more stats in another post, but for now, 50 species puts Plummer’s Hollow in the Top 25 for Pennsylvania this year (out of 4,211 eBird hotspots for the state). Our extremely limited waterfowl habitat will keep us a bit low in the rankings until the nocturnal microphone goes up in March.
Blair County has another Top 25 hotspot, Canoe Creek State Park. Increasing birder activity there and elsewhere in Blair County, along with the Plummer’s Hollow 200, will hopefully keep our county in the Top 20 for the state this year, well above our normal ranking position.
I’m please to report that Plummer’s Hollow now has around 213 species all-time, with the addition of over a dozen species last year. This puts our hotspot at about #75 for Pennsylvania; I’m hoping better NFC coverage this year will put us in the top 50. Recently, a May 30th 2022 nocturnal flight call checklist was approved with a Least Bittern on it, an extremely secretive marsh bird, joining another new 2022 addition, American Bittern. Lapland Longspur also appears to have been approved, as editors work through numerous 2022 nocturnal checklists I submitted toward the end of the year.
I have been hearing a barred owl every evening and early morning....does that count.
Matrk, As a nearby Sinking Valley dweller, I am enjoying your daily observations. I am sure we see many of the same birds here on the Skelp side of the mountain. Bill