Thursday: Solstice
After minutes of cloudy nothing, a confluence Song Sparrow sings once to start the day at 7:07 AM. The tiny dawn chorus commences—Carolina Wren, White-throated Sparrow, Northern Cardinal—but it’s mostly percussive ticks and clicks, over almost before it begins. Small groups of Mallards hurtle over town and along the ridgetops, a sign of frozen water, perhaps.
Silence again by 7:18, as odd, dark, swirling clouds build up to the south. Ten minutes later, a Winter Wren spills a waterfall of sound, welcome respite from the gloom. A spectacular sunrise come and goes in the course of five minutes.
The last autumn dawn rolls out four American Robins, whispering and floating overhead, a random American Goldfinch and then a House Finch, and then all the excitement of European Starlings. At 5 minutes to eight, the Common Raven pair arrives, croaking lustily down into the Gap for a carrion meal, perhaps. A Downy Woodpecker swoops into the confluence and then another flies in, not far away. Hard to tell if they’re also a pair, this early in the season, or just happen to be adjacent.
Friday: Winter’s Bones
The crossing is strewn with the wreckages of people’s lives today, but by this point I’m immune to the ugliness of it all. The pond is largely unfrozen, but not a waterbird is in sight. Walking back along the tracks, I feel like I almost know the individual Golden-crowned Kinglets by name, and the Winter Wrens, not to mention the handful of American Crows who show up every day. In the brush above the tracks, a Hermit Thrush clucks and then gives a high-pitched, downward alarm call, and another responds. A Great Blue Heron flushes from its fishing spot and heads upriver.
The Count Itself
Not long after 5 AM on Saturday, I repost the map of the 7.5-mile radius count circle, centered on the crossroads of Culp in Sinking Valley, to our Whatsapp group. Immediately, Juniata Valley Audubon Society past president John Carter responds from Canoe Creek State Park: he’s been out owling and already has a Great Horned and an Eastern Screech. Minutes later, he texts “saw whet.” A quick check to be sure: in the 54 years of this particular Christmas Bird Count, this is the first one anyone has recorded.
Just before 7, Paola and I arrive at the big house to drop off Olga, Paola’s mother, to spend the count day with my mom. As my older brother Steve emerges into the glare of the headlights, I point out a furiously flapping and fluttering bird trying to escape the veranda roof, up among the columns. Somehow, it’s an Eastern Phoebe, a month or more beyond its time, passing through from who knows where to who knows where but somehow knowledgeable about an exact location where its kin have nested for at least the last 54 years. It flies off into the semi-darkness.
Steve heads out to do a once-over of the property on foot, while Paola and I make for the tracks.
Still No Ducks
The weather is a bit clear, with a cloudy Venus and no wind whatsoever, and it’s somewhere in the thirties. We flush out the familiars: Golden-crowned Kinglets, Brown Creepers, Hermit Thrushes. With the warm temperatures, the pond is completely unfrozen, but not a duck is in sight. If no one gets a wigeon or a teal, I’ll stop back by here in the afternoon at some point.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a long-tailed raptor flying from field to field: Northern Harrier.
Meanwhile, other groups are beginning to report. John’s already gotten the two merganser species and a Pied-billed Grebe at Canoe Lake, and Steve the first Northern Flicker of the day, a species I was a bit concerned about.
In the old days, before smartphones, each group’s species remained a mystery until after the Count Supper (a potluck at the long-disappeared Sinking Valley Grange). These days, the mystery is gone, but the tradeoff is the ability to maintain a higher excitement level throughout the day, and refine one’s searching methods to target species that no one has gotten yet. Last year was the first that our combined lists broke the 70 species mark, and the goal this year is, naturally, to beat last year’s total of 72 for the count circle. At 8:02, John reels in another rarity, American Pipit, that hasn’t been recorded on Count Day since 2009. Minutes later, he gets the day’s only Pine Siskins, and then the Jacksons, who have been at this since the early 1980s at least, report a Killdeer from over by Bellwood. Things are looking good.
The Old Highway
After scouring the north end of the Plummer’s Hollow hotspot, Paola and I head downriver to pick up the Northeast Sector of the circle, which is basically the thick-and-black-walnut flats along the Little Juniata, and the hollows and high fields of Eden Hill. We get our major walk of the day in on an old paved road, once Highway 453, that dips down along the river, with soaring dolomite cliffs across the way. The sun is still negotiating with the nitrogen dioxide smog and the birds are already silent, even though it’s not even nine AM. We plug along, first above, then below, then parallel to the tracks, thankful to the good people of the Little Juniata River Association for working with landowners to keep this route open for walk-in fishing access.
All the way out the other end, we hear frightful cursing from the other side of a right-of-way, some argument over fishing around the bridge. Across the tracks is the gaping hole of a quarry with walls flaking giant slabs of Ordovician limestone. We set off along a back road, as a Belted Kingfisher cackles from a perch just downstream, annoyed at us or perhaps at the unhappy couple. An attractive house sits by itself, facing the river, in utter solitude, long unsold due to its sweeping view of the quarry, we surmise.
On the other side of the hill, an Amish farm yields a Northern Mockingbird and a community of House Sparrows. We turn around and trudge back. At a certain point, I hear some bird noise behind me, and pishing finally calls out a boisterous mixed flock, the highlight of which is a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, another one of those stay-behind Southern species that’s becoming more common as the winters get milder. The Bald Eagle shows up, an adult who perches obligingly on a snag along the top of the ridge.
The Climb
By this time, other groups are feeling their oats, and the scarcer species are rolling in: John announces an American Wigeon and a Ring-necked Duck, then an American Black Duck, Laura Jackson a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and the Engstroms report three Wood Ducks and a Field Sparrow from Canoe Valley. The Sinking Valley group checks in around 10:30 with a couple Swamp Sparrows, a Red-headed Woodpecker, and the first Eastern Meadowlark since 2005. Not for the last time, I ask if anyone has gotten Eastern Towhee or Fox Sparrow yet; no luck, but several groups are reporting White-crowned Sparrows. Oddly enough, no one has seen any of the various blackbird species that might be around.
Paola and I spend a few hours rambling around Eden Hill and environs. A muddy track into a state gamelands is in worse shape than ever, and I barely get the car out. It’s hard to stop and look at everything with purple paint and exurbia on all sides, but one place has a flock of Eastern Bluebirds, and even without any wind, the Red-tailed Hawks are about. I have high hopes for the open fields of stubble, but nothing is about but crows and Blue Jays.
Around the back end of a paved loops to nowhere, far above the quarry, some movements in the bushes turn into a rather improbably mixed flock—at least one Eastern Phoebe, some American Tree Sparrows, two Yellow-rumped Warblers, and a parade of the regulars. I’ve half a mind to spend more time here, but am dissuaded by a too-obvious pickup truck driving way too slowly toward me, then past, then turning around, then waiting. A sure sign I’ve been reported by folks who have seen a mysterious SUV, out of place, perhaps binoculars. I suppose they’ve already been texting each other, half-convinced I’m scoping their homes for my next invasion.
In all these years, I’ve never once been accosted as other birders have, but I’m reminded of why I dislike this type of birding so much. We’re private landowners ourselves, so I get the paranoia, but at a certain point, the constant fear that accompanies privileged American existence wears on me. I give up on the flock and head on to the next spot.
Above Spruce Creek, the old Turnpike road exposes the thick brush of a south-facing defile lined with scores of huge old Osage oranges, their wrinkly, yellow fruits strewn across the dead-end pavement. Near the top, the wood is seething with hundreds of birds, and I park briefly on the highway side of a wall of posted signs, playing towhee and Fox Sparrow, to no avail, as long as I figure I can get away with it.
Scraping Seventy
By half past noon, Horned Lark has been picked up in Sinking Valley, and even without four groups reporting (not on Whats), the count total looks like it’s nearing 70 species. There’s plenty of time left, but we can’t let out guard down, as the species curve tends to drop precipitously after mid-day. Still outstanding are any of the blackbirds, more waterfowl, Ruffed Grouse, Barred Owl, and still, the towhee and the Fox Sparrow. A welcome addition is a Red-shouldered Hawk from Nales, who are around Tyrone or Grazierville somewhere, perhaps the same one I heard along the river a week or two back.
John wraps up around 2 PM with a Turkey Vulture, and another group has also finished. The count supper isn’t until 6, however, to allow the stalwarts time to rack up the returns-to-roost and perhaps even the emergence of that crepuscular phantom, the Short-eared Owl.
Ducks: The Return
While Paola crashes out in the car at the bottom of the mountain, I consider it wise to check the pond again, to see if my duck flock has shown up yet. Not 100 yards down the tracks, a train comes, so I duck away toward the riverbank. Down below, something large scrabbles away from the bank and floats into the current. Improbably, it’s a Double-crested Cormorant, the first we’ve ever recorded in the water here in the hotspot, the first in winter, and the first after 54 years of CBCs. Naturally, I left the camera back in the car, and the diagnostic photo I snap with my phone is too embarrassing to post here. The cormorant swims away downstream in a zigzag fashion, out of sight, and I trudge on to the pond.
The pond’s been purple-painted now, too, but it’s still possible to see without trespassing. This bit of marking is courtesy of the recent theft of an old rowboat from the far shore, so like I said, I do get the paranoia of landowners.
Almost under my feet, Mallard ducks and drakes swim away and then begin to quack and splash in disarray, retreating to the other end of the pond. With them is the American Wigeon, not a first for the day anymore, but unusual to have two of a species that hasn’t been recorded at all on count day for over a decade.
And then, the reason I came back: the young Green-winged Teal is here, the only report of this species for the day.
The Seventies: Rarefied Air
With that, I’m certain the count total is over 70, even with a few IDs I have questions about. Eric and Angie from the Lower Trail report a pair of Black Vultures, Michael Kensinger and the Sinking Valley group log a Merlin, so I figure it’s time to call out the towhee. Leaving Paola at the big house, Steve and I head out to the blackberry patch in First Field, where nothing was astir in the morning. I don’t even get to the towhee call on Merlin before, thanks a little pishing, a female Eastern Towhee pops out to the top of a bush and flutters off with the white-throats.
We don’t have similar luck with the Fox Sparrow, even though Steve heard one sing just yesterday. There’s one last shot before dusk, over along Bird Count Trail, but nothing comes of it. As a consolation prize, over 100 American Robins show up, with a single Cedar Waxwing mixed in.
While folks get ready, I sit on the veranda for last call, which today is raven, then more raven. At about 10 until, it’s quiet, and then, as soon as Mom is done listening to a Tannhauser aria, we head out. White-throated Sparrows are just going to roost, kicking up their usual fuss.
Dave stays behind—he’s already flushed a flock of over 25 Wild Turkeys today, but his pièce de résistance is the elusive Barred Owl, which is missed more years than gotten, despite the fact that it resides year-round in the count circle.
The Crepusculars
On the way to the restaurant, a text comes through from Mike K. of the Sinking Valley group: “Short Eared owl FINALLY” (5:14 PM), and then “Flock of 75 red wings. I’m on a high from the short ear.”
As we settle in to stuff ourselves, another text comes through, this time from Dave: “it [Barred Owl] called once while i was sitting on Coyote Bench about 20 minutes ago…”
The One That Got Away
Mission accomplished with somewhere around 77 species for an enthusiastic group of dazed and exhausted counters trying valiantly to remain attentive through my abbreviated species read-out in the scramble of checks and quick exits. We promise not to schedule next year’s count so close to Christmas. But, as usual, the scheming’s already begun: at some point, a group is going to need to access that huge, roadless chunk of mountain forest in the middle of the count circle, a wilderness that should have at least ONE Ruffed Grouse.
-Thanks to all who participated! Here’s our Trip Report.-
Great write up!