Thursday’s breezy upper 80s gave way to a cold front that brought much-needed rain to the parched woods, but not before a major wildfire up in the Allegheny Front that burned a couple thousand acres, from what I heard. Friday it was back into the low forties, with an Osprey out by not long after 6 AM, and Chimney Swifts and swallows settling into their Tyrone summer.
Tern for the Better
At some point on Friday, I’m going through recordings and find this gem from 1:39 AM on April 17th. I had snipped it a few days ago and put it in the “putative heron” folder, but now that I’m going through the Ardeidae, I can’t find a match. I’m about to chalk it up to an aberrant Great Blue Heron when I decide to run it by Merlin, sticking my phone up to the laptop. Out pops “Caspian Tern,” our first record ever for the hotspot! Caspians, largest of all terns, winter way south and breed in the Great Lakes (and elsewhere across the northland), but like the other terns that move through our area, it’s primarily a nocturnal migrant. If you don’t go to a big lake, you’re unlikely to see one in migration. Last year at this time, Plummer’s Hollow had an all-time number of zero terns recorded; now, with our ear to the night sky, we’ve recorded three: this one, the Common Tern, and the Black Tern.
The truth is that things are starting to get out of hand. Mom and Dave have been sending random FOY (first-of-year) reports from the ridgetops, and even as I’m falling behind on analysis of the night spectrum, warblers, vireos, and other arrivals are raining down on Pennsylvania. With not much time to spare for birding today, I pick an early sit and stroll along the tracks, just in case the recent rain has pushed down something interesting, or I can score a Yellow-throated Warbler (alas, no).
Startling the Song Sparrow to Sing
At 5 AM it’s a deceptively warm 55 in town, and looks like fog. You know the drill: robins and phoebes are loud in town, but out beyond the lights, all is silent. Today, I’m trying to be civilized: I take my coffee sipping thermos and my breakfast banana and settle down with my ultralight collapsible armchair (uncollapsed) under a box elder boundary tree (Bonta-Norfolk Southern) next to the tracks. There’s no fog here and it’s very quiet. I’m set up at 5:28.
Then, as the first ‘tseeps’ issue from the undergrowth, the worst possible scenario unfolds, at least if you’re trying to document an unfolding dawn. A train appears from the east, but it’s barely moving. I think it had been lurking down toward the valley; it’s moving at a crawl, flashing its lights and blowing its whistle repeatedly. A Song Sparrow, caught in the glare and horn, sings abruptly.
This all means it’s going to stop—but where? There are three types of stops: the ones where they politely halt before reaching the Plummer’s Hollow crossing; the one where they block our crossing, sometimes by only a few yards; the one where they block both our crossing and the next crossing down at Tyrone, cutting off the entire village of Thomastown, sandwiched on a dead-end road between rail and interstate. (To be fair: though inadvisable, it’s always possible to get out by clattering over a mile or two of jagged gravel access road to get to another way around.)
This train is slow enough that it gets me in its lights as I’m settling down to slouch in my chair and swill caffeine. As it lumbers past, someone in the frontmost engine screams at me, shining a flashlight in my face. Then it creaks a few hundred more yards and grinds to a stop. Thankfully, the engines go off. It’s solid tanker cars, but I can’t make out what they’re carrying.
So this could be OK as long as I can hear. Unfortunately, a second train goes by on the near rail, from the same direction. More minutes lost until it fades away.
At 5:38, a White-throated Sparrow calls, and then some mammal can be heard, wheezing harshly. This turns out to be one of the various infernal sounds the train makes, as it never become completely silent. Then, a Northern Cardinal breaks the dawn with a loud song, just once, mere yards from me. At 5:42, an Eastern Towhee ‘reeps,’ then finally, a local American Robin wakes and a minute later begins to sing. As if in response, the metal beast hisses, and clanging can be heard from the direction of the front engines. There’s just time catch the first local Eastern Phoebe song before the train awakens.
This is accomplished by a ripple like gunfire from the front of the train, banging rapidly by and disappearing east, to be followed seconds later by the same sound coming back to the front of the train, then past again toward the back, fainter this time. Brakes and who knows what all now engaged, it starts the unbearably loud and slow process of hauling itself westward. It’s hard to believe any birds can stand to live next to this sort of thing; maybe Yellow-throated Warblers aren’t railfans is all I can figure, but everything else seems to be unfazed.
In the midst of endless tanker cars, still in the semi-darkness, Dave texts about a FOY Wood Thrush from up at the houses. I shrug helplessly as the brakes shriek. Finally, at 5:55 AM, after 150 or more cars, mostly tankers, go by, the back engine appears, and my chest vibrates at whatever frequency is being emitted by the departing train, the rails, the earth, or perhaps some combination.
It takes two more minutes for the noise to completely dissipate, as the bird chorus reemerges. They didn’t stop in the meantime, and a dozen species go onto the list in quick succession. Common Grackles are streaming through the Gap, all coming from the west, by 6:11, and as the eastern sky lights up, they are joined by a Green Heron, my first visual of it this year.
I hear a Wood Thrush at a quarter past; in a couple of weeks, there will be dozens of this species ushering in the day along the tracks and the river, and more throughout the Hollow and elsewhere in the deeper and lusher parts of the mountain.
The Conspiracy Lives On
Yesterday, 22 Common Ravens with a few American Crows streamed over Tyrone silently, the same ones who have been hanging about these last weeks. Today, seven ravens go over, calling to each other in a haunting cacophony of croaks and hoots.
I’ve got enough time to hoof it to the wetland across the pond, and good thing I do: the unmistakable ‘sweet’ call of a FOY Yellow Warbler signifies its return to a favorite breeding spot for this riparian species in the hotspot.
Back for what is supposed to be a brief sit on the balcony so I can change my footwear. As I step out of the car, an improved version of a House Finch warbles from the confluence: FOY Warbling Vireo! This is the only reliable spot it breeds in the hotspot, though during some years it pairs breed somewhat downstream as well, spaced at regular intervals all the way to the Yellow Warbler wetland.
A Song Sparrow perches on a near wire and sings: first time I’ve seen it do that here this year. A Barn Swallow pair is getting louder and more interested in the wires of this particularly parking lot as well. I’d like to think it’s the same pair as last year. I never grow tired of their endlessly bird-speech; when I was a kid, I would watch Barn Swallows on the wires next to our barn for hours, trying to figure out what they were saying.
The confluence is already being fished, so I figure that a small thing swimming about down there is some sort of toy. I grab my bins, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a female Bufflehead, swimming about, oblivious to the fishermen and everything else. Second record of this year—and second all-time—and it just goes to show that if you stare at the same patch of water enough, something marvelous will eventually happen.
Where We’re At
Right before the “at,” approximately 120 species as of Saturday night. Mom heard a Hooded Warbler and Dave a Black-and-white Warbler, plus there’s a Grasshopper Sparrow still waiting to be uploaded from the NFC pile. Tomorrow, I’m going to comb the ridgetops to see if all the messy weather drops a new wave of species. At this rate, we may reach 150 species by the end of April.