Saturday was Global Big Day. Instead of trying to scour every inch of the hotspot for 14+ hours to try to wrack up a 100+ species list, and even do some NFC live-listening, I decided on a different approach this year, more focused on the bigger picture and the big goal of the year.
In most years, whatever weekend falls toward the middle of May yields the highest species list, with all the breeding species in place, some of the early Hollow transients still around (Yellow-rumped Warbler) and the late transients (Blackpoll Warbler, Common Nighthawk, several flycatchers) just starting to come through. This year, we’re a bit behind, so I’m not too sanguine about my chances with the flycatchers, but there’s still time.
Dawn on Friday
The Yellow Warbler at the confluence has joined the early-early crowd. At 5:05 AM, with temps around 50 degrees, it’s already singing lustily, while Northern Rough-winged Swallows chase each other, gurgling, through the parking lots of downtown. I had no idea swallows were getting up so early! In the background, I can hear the rare strains of a Killdeer, off on the grassy knoll beyond the Interstate; this late in the year, I would think the species is breeding here.
At 5:14, as I drive slowly on 453 toward the bridge, Song Sparrows and Gray Catbirds are already vocalizing under the exit ramp lights leading out of town. I think they, like the robins and warbler, are light-affected, because once I reach the dark outside town, the singing ceases.
But not for long. The early crowd starts up before 5:30 AM now, and 16 species are on the list by the half hour, including my favorite Baltimore Oriole, and even a Yellow-throated Vireo that isn’t (no thanks to Merlin). Twenty by 5:35, 30 by 5:50, 47 by 6:30, and then it’s time to head back to the apartment for the vehicle hand-over. At the bridge, an unusual sight: teetertail, the Spotted Sandpiper, has left a narrow riverbank somewhere upstream and is zig-zagging over the water below me, heading downstream. This species and the Solitary are the only two typical sandpipers that can be seen with any frequency in the hotspot; both show up nightly on the spectrum as well.
Back in the parking lot, the American Robins are fighting again. Apparently there was unfinished business from last night. The roughies are fighting as well, chasing each other loudly through the forest of wires.
Friday Evening
With a frenetic weekend ahead, it’s nice to chillax and watch and listen to the comparatively few species around the balcony in more detail as I continue to follow their sagas.
European Starlings, despite the presence of swifts and swallow, have not given up their aerial foraging habits. Is it my imagination, or are they acting more like swallows now? The warm and humid May air has become clogged with bugs, and the starlings, of which only a handful of breeding pairs are left in the vicinity, often head from their perches up into the air to grab a snack. Like the majority of the permanent residents, I assume they’re already feeding families. It is amusing to watch a particularly greedy starling go for a bumblebee, miss it, and have the bee turn around and start chasing it. As it turns out, starlings fly faster than bees can, but still, it’s nice to see the prey turn the tables on the predator for once.
Just before six, the noises I have been hearing that weren’t quite starlings turn out to be Cedar Waxwings. They’re back at last from Central America, one of the last breeders to return! So far this year, I have had a total of one individual inside a large robin-starling feeding flock during the winter, but otherwise, waxwings haven’t been around since the huge congregations of hundreds that roosted in town and commuted to the black cherries and other mountain bonanzas last fall.
Our feeders are finally getting some attention from the hummers, for which it’s been a slow spring so far. One particular Ruby-throated Hummingbird is a wire-sitter tonight:
After watching the local Eastern Phoebe gut and swallow a juicy caterpillar, I call it a night.
Dawn Saturday: Tracks
Satellite images shows a mass of precipitation to the south, moving obliquely to us. Out in it, this means a few drops, a slight breeze, and overcast skies.
In 60-degree warmth, I pace back and forth on both sides of the tracks, listening for anything out of the ordinary. An unusual species could mean a fallout or at least the presence of new passage migrants, beyond the normal day-to-day of the newly arrived breeding species and the more established residents.
First out of the gate is the Scarlet Tanager from up on the mountain somewhere. It’s one of 13 species sounding off before 5:30 AM. Others are also expected, from Gray Catbirds galore to Tufted Titmice and Black-capped Chickadees, two venerable members of the permanent population, to Louisiana Waterthrush, the first warbler to wake, its breeding season well underway, singing and flying back and forth across the tracks a bit earlier every dawn.
It sure sounds a lot like yesterday. Then, around 5:45, I hear something different at the entrance to the Hollow, just above the gate. With the waterthrushes, catbirds, and Northern Cardinals drowning most other species out, it’s hard to tell, however. But, then, an unusually early Tennessee Warbler gives its staccato trill from down the tracks a bit, in the same place one was singing yesterday. Various small shapes zoom back and forth across the tracks, from the lush woods of Laurel Ridge to a patch of terra nullius and thick undergrowth between the rails and the river, to the east of the Plummer’s Hollow road and run.
At 5:49, I’m seriously considering heading up top to catch the height of the chorus somewhere else. It doesn’t look that promising here. Then it happens.
At 5:50, the distinctive blurry song of a Mourning Warbler (PH200 #169) issues from the afore-mentioned patch of terra nullius—exactly the same spot, and around the same time, I heard one here on May 3, 2018. Before I have time to do much reflection, a Kentucky Warbler (PH200 #170) sings nearby, and I recognize it as what called amongst the cardinals around the gate minutes earlier; it must have flown across the tracks. To the untrained ear, the Kentucky can sound like an Ovenbird or a cardinal, and if you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse, it looks vaguely like a Common Yellowthroat. Five years ago, I heard this species across the tracks to the left, around a vernal pond in terra nullius:
That was the same morning I heard the MOWA here. Four years ago, on June 25, 2019, I detected two and possibly three Kentucky Warblers - one was on territory just above the tracks, and the other was on territory at the confluence of Greenbriar and Bird Count trails, another favored spot for this species and the MOWA. A month after that, I detected a pair of KEWAs at one of the locations and a singing male at the other. In 2020, I detected two during migration, none breeding, and since then, it’s been a drought, until now.
Mourning Warblers favor quite specific microhabitats here, clearings in lush, thick growth; they breed in the Northern Tier counties of Pennsylvania and elsewhere to the north. They’re a good bird to look for around the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania (Pine Creek Gorge). Kentucky Warblers are a southern species, so they are at best quite scarce around here. I’ve looked in vain for the latter during late summer, when they are already migrating south; I did find a MOWA in early August last year, up by the powerline cut off First Field, so if I had missed the species this month, I would have tried to intercept one again on its return journey. Now, at least, the pressure is off for two species I was quite uncertain about getting.
In other news, Blue Jays are flying high and calling, a sound that always reminds me of fall, which seems a lifetime away, as it should. The American Robins are emitting more and more of their whisper calls, rather surprising for a species that is usually raucous. Down the tracks toward the pond, I watch two Common Grackles chase an American Crow, then two more grackles chasing a second crow that can’t shake them; it caws angrily and they finally peel away.
A cloud of huge black shapes over the near part of the massive limestone quarry resolves itself to at least fifty Turkey Vultures, perched on rock outcrops above the main highway, while others circle, I would guess above a tasty roadkill. I don’t see all the local TVs at once these days, as they seem to have dispersed to nesting spots and no longer return to Tyrone in single file in the evenings.
The tracks themselves harbor sort of a guild of species that perch on the rails and hunt among the ties, I can’t imagine for what as these are saturated by petrochemicals. Today, pairs of American Crows, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, and Mourning Doves are all puttering about, but I can’t make out what they’re getting out of it. Perhaps some of the cards carry grains? Another question to investigate when I have the time.
Last of the Woodpeckers
Round about 7:08 AM, a text arrives from Dave, who perches on his porch every morning for inspiration for his microblog:
-Merlin is claiming I have a red-headed woodpecker in the yard.
Me:
-Whoa, better look. Try to record. Unless it’s picking up a catbird.
7:14 AM:
-couldn’t get a visual. It was calling from the walnut trees in Mom’s yard. When I got over there it flew over to Sapsucker and is calling from the base of the powerline…maybe it is a catbird but it only made that one sound.
I’ll check the recording and look for it myself when I get up there in a bit.
Saturday Morning: First Field
Rain clouds are churning closer and closer, so I leave the long lens in the car by the garage for a quick jaunt around the field to look for the last woodpecker we need for the year, and whatever else. My mistake. As I suspected, warblers are not only abundant but also relatively tame, as they often are in overcast conditions when they seem to stay closer to the ground. Oddly enough, Tennessee Warblers are the most common, singing from all sides. A Wilson’s Warbler, which I didn’t get all last spring (I already have one for this year, thanks to the NFCs), is singing across from Dave’s house.
I reach one of the prime patches of scrubby trees that sticks out from the upper side of First Field to the left of the powerline. This spot was excellent last Fall, and yielded three Philadelphia Vireos. I’m not really intent on this species in the spring, since it is so similar in song to the Red-eyed, which outnumbers it 100 to 1. Nevertheless, I try a bit of Philly and out one pops, practically jumping onto me in its excitement (PH200 #171). Shame I didn’t bring the camera.
As I expected, the putative Red-headed Woodpecker is long gone. It’s in that class of migrant and scarce local resident that doesn’t breed here, wandering through in the early morning without stopping. I turn to the warblers, but happen to glance up to see a brown, female Northern Harrier flap across the top of the powerline cut close to me, barely clearing the treeline of Sapsucker Ridge, then soar overhead, not stopping to hunt the field. It’s the closest I have seen the species this year.
Turning now to warblers, there are so many species singing that it takes me several minutes to register them separately in my brain and sort through the similar-sounding ones. I search another prime patch, a bent-over catalpa mixed with thick barberry and grading into taller deciduous woods just to the right of the powerline. I expect Lincoln’s Sparrow here (none yet), but instead, amongst the Black-throated Green, Hooded, Black-and-white, Black-throated Blue, and Cerulean warblers, with Common Yellowthroats, Field Sparrows, Chipping Sparrows, Indigo Buntings, and vireos aplenty (Red-eyed and Yellow-throated), out pops a perfect adult Mourning Warbler, a scant fifty yards from where I saw a female or immature last August. It is within three yards of me and in perfect view. Should have brought the camera.
The leaves on the black walnut trees in the yard are still in their infancy, so it’s easy to spot warblers: more Tennessees, a Magnolia, and a Yellow-rumped, and in the lilac bush right next to the veranda, a diminutive Wilson’s.
Meanwhile, while chatting with Mom, she tells me that the young Eastern Phoebes in the veranda column nest have hatched, to judge from the noise. We watch an Eastern Bluebird tote a bug across the field and alight on its nesting box near the garage, stuffing its head into the hole.
Later, I open Dave’s Merlin recording, and sure enough, a Red-headed Woodpecker was in the yard (PH200 #172). We beat up on Merlin, doing our part in the resistance against our A.I. overlords, but I have to admit, it can be quite useful at times.
Saturday Evening
After shopping and other non-birding et ceteras, I grab a balcony seat for the sundown show. First off at 7:30, I hear the insistent, dry ‘chebec’ of a Least Flycatcher from the grove of trees across the river: first 2023 record from this spot of a species that seems to be present in higher numbers this year. A few minutes later, a mixture of robin and swallow alarm calls alerts to the presence of a Cooper’s Hawk, pursued briefly by Tree Swallows.
As I watch the local group of Mallards fly by yet again, quacking—all males—I realize I am seeing a lot of male birds, and fewer females. I would guess they’re sitting on eggs. Common Grackles are now mostly males sitting in the tops of trees alone; and how long has it been since I’ve seen a female Northern Cardinal?
At ten after 8, I watch a Red-tailed Hawk skimming the trees over Bald Eagle Mountain just to the right of the towers; it circles for several minutes. This is the latest I’ve seen it out. How much later the evenings are becoming! And then, despite my sitting a few feet away, a female House Finch dives into the hanging fern by the door and doesn’t reemerge, while its mate sits on the wire and sings. Hmmm.
Tonight I want to see what is out past 8:30. As it turns out, most species are doing their last hurrahs right around that time. But dusk progresses rapidly, and by 8:38, against the background of swifts, robins, and catbirds, a Carolina Wren and a Song Sparrow sing, just as a train arrives.
The last of the swifts has tucked itself in a chimney by the time the train noise recedes, and by 8:45 it’s nothing but robins and catbirds. Then comes the last reward of the day: the unmistakable sound of peent-ing Common Nighthawks (PH200 #176) over Sapsucker Ridge. I hadn’t expected this species until next week, but I’m glad to know they’re passing through. When I was a kid they nested on the old flat roofs of Tyrone, but I don’t think they’ve nested around here in years.
It’s almost nine when I finally head inside; I tap at the fern, and the House Finch pops out. Here’s what we eventually discover:
I think we have an official mascot of the Plummer’s Hollow 200.
I do believe they would nest in the kitchen if we left the door open. In addition to providing endless amusement from now on, I think it’s poetic justice. Paola and I saw and heard more of this species than any other when we lived in Queretaro, Mexico, about five years ago; as you may remember from the beginning of this year, I think of it as the ‘Mexican finch,’ as its Latin name suggests. I guess, of all the local invasives, it’s the best choice for a porch-nester.