Peregrination
Back up to 41 degrees, with a stiff breeze. Cumuli jostle, jigsaw puzzle pieces pushing east quickly through clear air. Today should see raptors up and about early.
Meanwhile, down on earth, not a creature is stirring except for the junkyard raven, honking over and over and over. It starts up at 6:53, from somewhere beyond the junkyard this time—the train station, maybe—and then finally wings past me at 7:04, out to the Gap.
Rock Pigeons are up early in this wind. At 7:05 a swirling mass of 40+ rotates a few times then heads out. Two minutes later, another 10 depart.
JR wasted no time. It’s already up doing dives and half-turns by the towers. A juvenile Bald Eagle lifts off from somewhere around the towers and, once at altitude, heads off over the Gap, east. Now JR is back, overhead.
Starlings start trickling in, small groups but vocal, by 7:09. But I can hear and see nothing from the trees and brush, except a Black-capped Chickadee at its customary 7:15, ahead of the school bus.
A Mallard heads through the Gap from upriver at 7:15; two minutes later, a pair of male Common Mergansers comes out of the Gap, very high up, heading west. This is followed by a small, silent flock of American Crows flying slowly from over my right shoulder and through the Gap, the typical path they take. Six, an improvement over the solo crow who’s been doing this most days for weeks.
Not losing out on the early breezes, one of the Red-tailed Hawks rises from the hollow behind and north of the towers, cruising northeast along the ridgeline, dodging the towers and continuing, then disappearing down again.
A LOUD Carolina Wren goes off on a single ‘teakettle.’ I think the other, quieter birds of the brush today have been silenced or muted by the wind.
At the half-hour, three Common Ravens are frolicking in the sky way north over Bald Eagle Mountain. The Red-tailed Hawk then re-appears, over the Gap, circles for a bit then heads back toward the towers, and is joined by what I think might be its mate.
They take to circling to the north of the towers, and as I watch intently to see if they undertake any courtship rituals, I spot a much more distant and higher bird that resolves itself into a pointy-winged apparition: the year’s first Peregrine Falcon! (PH200 #61). It’s not interested in Tyrone or its pigeons today, though, and instead glides northwest steadily, out of sight, toward the Allegheny Front. The first, I am hoping, of many sightings of this sublime raptor in 2023.
Vultures Claim the Towers
Less magnificent than our largest falcon, too be sure, but not without a certain charm, the local Black Vultures are perching on the tower girders in the sunny afternoon.
They’re the second species to do this in 2023, after the ravens, and in a few weeks, on the warmer afternoons, they’ll be joined by Turkey Vultures into the scores and who knows what else.
I’m kind of glad the towers are already productive, because back down here, after dawn, the days lapse into birdlessness except for the ubiquitous pigeons.
Robin Sky
Back to the pond. I’m disappointed to report that despite the diligence of the muskrats, the partially-open water holds only five Mallards today. As usual this February, the walk back is silent, no late calls, no bird activity. I’m crafting some subtitle like “5 Mallards from Zero” when, at 5:11, eighteen Canada Geese go over west-east, calling softly and splitting their V as they skim the toe of Laurel Ridge heading to Sinking Valley.
At 5:13, a single American Robin flutters home high, to Tyrone or parts adjacent. Six minutes later, a flock of seven straggles back slowly toward town, as high as the tops of the ridges and centered squarely over the river. I’m reminded of my evening bottom-of-the-mountain sits from March on through the summer, when robins are the second-to-last returnees, followed only by the Chimney Swifts. If this were June, swifts would be going back right up until it’s too dark to make them out, but in February, there is nothing after the robins.