Migration Update
-Mon to Wed, May 15/16/17 2023-
The nesting season is well underway in our corner of the Plummer’s Hollow hotspot. At the same time, birds are still pouring through in waves, and I have barely had time to glance at the NFC recordings. Every time I have a couple of hours, though, I catch a few new ones: Semipalmated Sandpiper (May 10 after 2 AM) and Least Sandpiper (May 11 around 3:30 AM) are the first but certainly not the last ‘peep’ shorebirds. They’re common at night, but fly high; the linked recordings are faint, but diagnostic. There will be more: Dunlin and Pectoral Sandpiper should fly over at some point, and who knows what else? Hopefully, we’ll get some inclement weather that will push them down within a few hundred feet of the antenna.
A pleasant NFC surprise was the Willow Flycatcher, a bit after 2:10 AM on May 11. It called once in flight. They are somewhat more common as passage migrants in the hotspot than Alder Flycatchers (yet to get), though both are pretty scarce, as neither one nests nearby, from what I know.
White-eyed Vireo & Gray-cheeked Thrushes
As I mentioned previously, a FOY White-eyed Vireo was singing by the stream next to the gate Monday morning, rounding out the vireos for the year. A few minutes later, as I was poking around the dark entrance to terra nullius off Plummer’s Hollow Road, right above the river, I espied two thrushes hopping about in the leaf duff covering the old road, now gated to keep out valagardos. I expected Veeries, Swainson’s Thrushes, or perhaps Hermit Thrushes, but instead, it was a pair of Gray-cheeked Thrushes, a species much more common in the fall. How, you ask, did I ID them so quickly? As it happens, they both sang several times before flying off. One advantage of Merlin is the ability to rapidly match vocalizations; I can’t rightly say if I’ve EVER heard this species sing here before, and the northern thrushes have a range of different similar-sounding songs. These were right on the mark for Gray-cheeked.
We already had the species for the PH200 from a nocturnal flight call, but it was nice to be able to get a visual, even though the phone recording I procured was pretty useless. About 20 minutes later, I saw them again on the other side of the old railroad trestle in the spaces between privets, still singing softly.
Tuesday: Dawn Trek
I have hatched the half-cocked idea of trekking a circuit around the entire hotspot before work at 9 on Tuesday. Don’t try this at home. I figure if I cover about six miles, I might hear an errant flycatcher or warbler still missing for the big year.
At 4:48 AM I depart on foot down highway 453, leaving the light-affect early-early bird crowd behind. I am amazed by the number of trucks and cars commuting at this hour. Luckily, in the dark without reflectors, I can scoot through the narrowest section of berm and get to the bridge without any vehicles going by. I detest this route, but I take it on these very occasional early morning hikes when it’s too dark to cut through bank grounds and junkyard to get to the tracks.
As I reach the Hollow entrance at 5:04 AM, the first Scarlet Tanager sings and then calls; three minutes later, an Acadian Flycatcher goes off. I’m already sweating in the 38-degree warmth, as birds are starting up one after the other. Ascending the long stretch, under the hemlocks, instead of the expected early Blackburnian Warbler, I hear a Northern Parula. This warbler sometimes nests on the property, but at most no more than two pairs, and it seems to mostly sing in breeding season at this time of day, just once or twice.
I take the route up Dogwood Knoll to Greenbriar Trail and do a sit in the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher spot. The species curve is steep at first: 20 by 5:30 and 50 species by 6:30, topping 60 species by 7 AM. Nothing out of the ordinary as I reach the field, but I do hear the Orchard Oriole down around the barn, maybe the same one I saw on Sunday.
Warblers are still about in large numbers, particularly Tennessees. Today, I head over to Laurel Ridge and hike the crest of that all the way back down to the pond, which toward the end involves some very nasty scrambling over scree, brush, and fallen trees. Along the way, besides the abundant Red-eyed Vireos, Blue-headed Vireos, Ovenbirds, and Eastern Wood-Pewees, plenty of warblers can be heard from the young forest and tangles on neighboring properties just off the ridgetop on the Sinking Valley side. I don’t have much time, but I am satisfied that no Yellow-breasted Chats, Golden-winged Warblers, or rare flycatchers are over here.
By 8:15, I have reached the tracks, and the list stands at 70 species. I head back toward town, and just as I reach the apartment I hear species number 80, a Mallard. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird and a Warbling Vireo make it 82, and I’ve still got 12 minutes to grab a shower before work.
This is not something I would recommend. I get very sore, and later in the day, I pick up one of the target species I hiked all that way for, Willow Flycatcher, while sitting on the couch, scrolling through the spectrum.
Wednesday: Strolling through the Empids
On Wednesday afternoon, I take a shorter and more civilized loop, parking above the long stretch at 3:40 PM. I need to make as many attempts as possible for the flycatchers and other missing species, and things are getting quite busy, what with the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology’s annual Birding Festival quickly approaching. This year, it’s nearby in State College, and we are doing a fieldtrip Sunday morning to show a dozen early risers the trails.
Even in the late afternoon, most birds are singing and active, and the list reaches 62 species before I have to get back to the house to make dinner. Our FOY Purple Martin (PH200 #179) makes a grand appearance, calling and chasing a Broad-winged Hawk across the field some 20 meters above me. Still no Lincoln’s Sparrow in the customary places, nor the three missing warblers (Blue-winged, Golden-winged, Prairie); no Yellow-breasted Chat.
The most confusing episode for me is a quite confiding Empid, a diminutive flycatcher in the middle and upper branches of the locusts that buffer the field from the woods. It neither calls nor sings, and has enough yellow on it that it could be a Yellow-bellied, though it is most likely a Least. The habitat isn’t quite right for the much scarce Yellow-bellied, but I am hesitant to call it a Least without any sound. After some social media consults, I leave it at the dreaded ‘Empidonax sp.’
Not long after, I am standing in the small tarred area of the road below Dave’s house, and I see another Empid off at the edge of the ‘wet area,’ which, as you guessed, is a small wetland; it has deep forest on one side, and various small trees nearby that surround the old stone spring house. This one is not close to me, the light is bad, I’m running late, but it does call, a perfect ‘kittic’, three times, matching the third Yellow-bellied Flycatcher vocalization on the Merlin app. It sounds nothing like the ‘chebec’ of the Least Flycatcher.
And so the Plummer’s Hollow 200 scrapes 180 species, still in the top five for Pennsylvania. To the general public, it might appear that another score is predictably attainable, but that’s far from the truth. Each of the species that remains that is NOT a gift from the night spectrum is going to be anywhere between tough and impossible.
If you’re interested in that discussion, it’s at the bottom of a post from Sunday.
Meanwhile, as we say in the business, the only thing we can do is keep on birdin’!
I'm so envious of your gray-cheeked thrush encounter!