ravens chasing eagles chasing eagles

-the whole thing goes south quickly

Tyrone Golden Eagles

At about five minutes to ten, Golden Eagle #13 of the morning glides into view, riding the (finally!) favorable northwest gale, clearing the Sapsucker Ridge canopy by a hundred yards. Two Common Ravens that had been minding other business over on Laurel Ridge spot an opportunity, and lose no time. Their intentions clear, both of the smaller birds flap straight at the eagle, croaking loudly, on the attack. The eagle somersaults again and again in an attempt to escape, but the ravens won’t let it continue on its way. They drive it across the sky above me and I watch as it flips and twirls, diverted away from its flight path. The last I see of the three birds, they are disappearing over Laurel Ridge toward Sinking Valley. Perhaps the eagle will find a more friendly ridge to ride, or circle back to this one farther south.

The eagles come in pairs and trios, in a range of plumages, dozen after dozen. At a certain point it seems like a dream; maybe they’re just outsized “tails,” after all. A few, indeed, are Red-tailed Hawks, with a Northern Harrier and a handful of accipiters mixed in, and here and there a Turkey Vulture or a Black Vulture. But closer scrutiny is needed to distinguish darker Goldens from immature Bald Eagles, which are mostly locals. Around 10:30, what I presume is a local Bald, an adult, is circling to my right, well off the flight path. As soon as it spots the latest eagle glider, it peels away from its gyrations and heads straight at the Golden, chittering loudly.

The Bald Eagle dives at the Golden Eagle, chasing it south along the flight path; this particularly Golden seems to have little fight in it, and the two quickly disappear over the top of the spruce grove.

The tables are turned a few minutes later. One of a tight group of five Golden Eagles drives away an immature Bald Eagle, emitting a klee series of vocalizations I don’t believe I’ve ever heard here before. The caroling of Fox Sparrows wells up from the field below.

Since 9:05, I’ve barely had time to leave the mowed field next to the garage. Every time I turn around, a new eagle is popping up along the ridgetop; I get to follow it a few hundred yards away, and then wait for the next one, usually not more than a few minutes later. Mom returns from her walk around noon, and still the eagles keep coming. I can only guess how many will be tallied during the full day’s count a few miles to the north at the Bald Eagle Mountain location. We’ve already blown by the old record from Plummer’s Hollow and this county, and just as I’m about to call it a day, seven Golden Eagles appear above the powerline cut as if by magic, jostling with each as they line up to soar on down to the Monongahela or wherever they’ll spend the winter. These ones snuck up on me, perhaps having diverted from another ridge. But they’re about it for the day: the total stands at 56. Bald Eagles totaled 11, including the locals and a half dozen or more migrants.

In the evening, the total comes in from the next watch north: 71 Golden Eagles for the day (8:20 Am - 2:47 PM), with most coming in the morning, and most of those, no doubt, the same ones I saw. Nick Bolgiano commented that it was the 3rd-highest single-day total for Pennsylvania; the other totals are not provided as eBird lists, so 71 is the new eBird high.

In which 199 become 200 and 200 become 201

In the previous post, I shared the flight calls of a Snow Bunting from back in early November, and called it #199 for the year. As it turns out, eBird purposely miscalculates numbers by hiding data on sensitive species, one of which—the newly renamed American Barn Owl—we picked up via NFC in the spring. Thus, the Snow Bunting was actually the 200th species for 2024. I didn’t know this on November 12th, however, when I decided to do a mid-morning balcony count after wrapping up a promising earlier count. Winds were brisk out of the northwest when I started back up at 9 AM after a 10-minute break. The lull that follows the morning commute began to annoy me after some 20 minutes of nothing, but then the first Common Loon sped over, straight south, nearly intersecting three Golden Eagles emerging from the northeast. Ten minutes later, a shimmering flock of some 55 Ring-billed Gulls followed the loon; unlike a lot of the gulls I see crossing over the Gap, these were moving fast, more purposeful than the wheeling and dawdling gull flocks I’m accustomed to seeing here. They remain the only Ring-bills I’ve seen since the spring, when I saw a total of 12 - one in February, 10 in March, and one in April.

This has definitely not been a good year for Larids. American Herring Gulls also only made it onto three checklists for a total of nine birds in March and April. And, for the first time since I started NFCs, not a single tern was detected.

At 9:55, species #201 appeared along the ridge line. A pair of Bonaparte’s Gulls drifted into view from the north, quickly disappearing southward. Around the same time, four more Common Loons went over high, and that was it for the flight.

Winter comes early

All year, I’ve been remarking on the week to ten days that most species seem to be ahead of schedule. Most recently, we passed peak towhee a week before its usual time of October 8th. With every northern wind of fall, numbers of species and individuals take a dive, as if something is coming.

Something finally comes the week before Thanksgiving: the tenacious fall drought gives way to a snowstorm on the 22nd, which only dusts the town but dumps a few inches up on top. I go out on the 23rd to see if the somewhat unusual weather has moved any birds around, as they have settled into a rather boring and predictable pattern since the winds died down last week. Sure enough, the thickets along the tracks are buzzing with activity, including the first Yellow-rumped Warbler in quite awhile. The typical six Winter Wrens are also bouncing about, spaced every hundred yards or so, singing and calling even more than the Carolina Wrens in the vicinity.

These past years, we’ve become accustomed to late fall cold snaps followed by balmy temperatures, but not this year. The cold never really left after the 22nd, and by the end of the month, night-time temperatures are in the upper teens, with daytime reaching the low 30s. On December 1st, the pond is frozen up, and the last of the yellow Norway maple leaves have been ripped away by the winter gales. Amazingly, as if we were in January, the weather forecast shows no let-up for the near future, at least.

I’m assuming the Bonaparte’s Gull was the last new species of the year, but at this rate, we might even get something rare out of the north before the New Year.

Waterfowl season flops

For the first time in several year, the large group of late fall Mallards did not show up at the pond. This was presumably because the pond was nearly non-existent due to the drought. Mallard numbers did begin to increase at the end of November, reaching 11 on the 29th, but with the ensuing early freeze-up, the pond has become a dead zone once again.

Ah yes, and another factor perhaps has added to the unattractiveness of the pond to ducks this fall. It turns out that the burgeoning muskrat population is hostile toward them. On the 25th at dawn, I watched three separate muskrats repeatedly chase the lone Mallard, whereas in the past it had seemed that muskrats and ducks did not tangle with each other.

That day, as I skulked away from the half-light, 6:40-AM events at the pond, a long rattle started up behind me and then trailed overhead, ending many seconds later far upriver. Apparently, the Belted Kingfisher that was hanging around the past few days roosted at the pond for the night. And this was not the only unusual occurrence of this particular morning. The first light-triggered American Robin I’ve heard sing in many months was already at it in town by 6:20 AM, while a few minutes later, as I came out from under the interstate bypass, a crepuscular Great Blue Heron came flapping down the tracks and right overhead. Then, a few minutes later, an odd screeching from the river, just below the bridge, had me guessing, until it eventually resolved into the upward squeal of a Wood Duck. I approached a bank overlook carefully, though I wouldn’t have been able to see more than a dark shape in the water below. The duck, with eyes far better than mine, was alerted to my presence nonetheless and I listened as its squeal abruptly departed upstream. This woke up one of the local Hermit Thrushes, which began to whine and hum.

The Wood Duck was significant: it was only the third record from this fall. The first two were NFCs from November 2. Otherwise, ducks have been few and far between. As mentioned, even Mallards have been sparse, and Common Mergansers haven’t shown back up since the last three migrants on October 5th. Night recordings have picked up the rest: Green-winged Teal on Nov. 3, American Wigeon on the 12th, and Gadwall on the 26th. Canada Geese have also been largely absent, and though the first Tundra Swans were way back on the 9th, the bulk of them appear to have gone over around the 24th, when Dave heard and saw around 200 between one and two in the afternoon. Flocks, presumably off Lake Erie or somewhere in that region, continued to go over the rest of that week on the way to the Atlantic bays, ahead of a massive lake-effect snowstorm at the end of the month.

Numbers Note

Two species recorded in Plummer’s Hollow—American Barn Owl (only as NFCs) and Long-eared Owl (a couple decades ago)—are hidden from the eBird output. This means that the grand total of detected species for the hotspot accepted on eBird is 231, not the 229 or 228 I’ve been thinking was the right number. (The highest number, 231, includes Ring-necked Pheasant, historically an acceptable species, as well as Northern Bobwhite, which is typically thought of as solely an escape.) This year, we added six species to the all-time list:

• Red-breasted Merganser (2 seen, 3/13)

• American Coot (1 seen and several via NFC, April)

• Black-crowned Night Heron (via NFC, starting 4/19)

• Willet (via NFC, 4/30)

• Clay-colored Sparrow (heard and recorded 5/4 by Matt Schenk)

• Red Knot (via NFC, 6/5)

Bit by bit, the new species added are declining, thanks to continuous NFC recordings picking up most of the regulars. Last year we added 13 new species, with Bufflehead the only non-NFC addition. Before that, 2022 added 11, 2021 added 6, and 2020, the first NFC year, added 12. No year prior to that had added more than four new species since 1991.

As for the first Plummer’s Hollow 200, last year’s grand total, it turns out, with American Barn Owl added in, was 204, not 203. The combined total for 2023 and 2024 is 213, while the five-year total (2020-2024) is 222. The species that have been absent since before 2020, with last-recorded dates, are:

• White-winged Crossbill (1/13/2013)

• American Goshawk (2/11/2007)

• Ring-necked Pheasant (last considered wild 11/4/1999)

• Pine Grosbeak (3/17/1989)

• Summer Tanager (5/11/1987)

• Horned Grebe (4/12/1979)

• White-winged Scoter (4/10/1979)

• Ruddy Duck (4-9/1979)

A few species have remained elusive: other than the handful of truly mysterious NFCS, like a possible Marbled Godwit from a couple years ago, dates are lacking for long ago visual records of Little Blue Heron, scaup, and possibly a couple others.

My best bet is that the next new species someone actually sees will be a Blue Grosbeak..

Winter NFCs?!

Meanwhile, as I await next year’s excitement, I’m going to try to record NFCs all winter to see what, if anything, goes over (or my computer will freeze solid). November saw a drop to nearly nothing by the end of the month, as is normal. American Tree Sparrows were the last of the regular nocturnal passerines, with here and there a White-throated or Chipping sparrow dashing south, and the last Savannah Sparrow on the 16th. The last Hermit Thrush called in flight on the 18th, and a Killdeer cried on the 23rd. Nothing other than waterfowl made it past mid-month. We’ll see what December brings.