TGIF RBGU

Humidity at 92% in a squishy 53 degrees with intermittent downpours. Friday and we’re halfway down a slide toward the teens again, from this week’s record-breaking highs in the 70s. The rain stops by 6:43 AM and the wind picks up.

The junkyard raven is once again the earliest riser, honking at 6:46, while the American Robin that apparently roosts by the VFW awakens in alarm. I call Penelec on a sparking power pole nearby; later, I can see that the line of dancing lights had been the charring of a branch.

Up into the gloom go 17 Rock Pigeons just before 7, but the low light is holding most of the species until later.

Today, the stars are Bald Eagles: a juvenile and later an adult are already over the ridge of Bald Eagle Mountain by 7:03. They spend the next twenty minutes diving and soaring, getting close and dipping their wings, nearly touching, then zooming closer over town and up, back to the mountain and out of sight.

In the growing wind mixed with the sound of wet tires, any dawn chorus today, if there is one, is fully muffled. The Black-capped Chickadees and Tufted Titmice can easily be heard, however, and even the Song Sparrow makes an effort at a quarter past.

At the height of dawn gale, a solitary Ring-billed Gull, my second detection of the year, coasts over not far above, wings crooked, coming through the Gap as they often do, seemingly following the course of the Little Juniata. A lone winter wanderer or an early migrant? It scans the town below intently as if looking for a place to land; perhaps it is heading for the reservoir, or just the ample parking lots over by Tyrone High.

In a few weeks, I expect a few migrant flocks of Ring-billeds and Herrings coming up the river, with a fair number of night-time call detections in March as well. They’ll be back through, but in smaller numbers, into late Fall. The other expected Larid, the smaller Bonaparte’s Gull, also migrates at night when I am likely to pick up its distinctive call later this Spring. I’ve never seen one during the day-time over the hotspot (others have), but perhaps this year.

The point above Sapsucker Ridge is the sweet spot for the local Red-tailed Hawk pair today. They’re quick to make it across from Bald Eagle Mountain, and by 7:30 they’re circling just above the trees. Farther overhead, four Black Vultures kettle in the dramatic clouds. Meanwhile, American Crows are loud and active all about town for the first time this winter.

In all, 21 species this dawn, not bad given the weather and noise. We’ll see how silent Sunday stacks up; tomorrow, I’ll be away in a new sit spot on the trail of the towhee.