Trickle-up dynamics
No good winds
At least in my patch of the cosmos, the April winds have come from all the wrong directions. Birds are bottled up in flocks, long after the time of flocking, though an intrepid few continue to push north regardless.
What I see growing in numbers around here are American Robins, tripping the eBird high numbers filter every day after dawn. Not long before 7, and stretching to at least 7:30, loose flocks of a dozen to a hundred apiece wander eastward off night roosts on the Allegheny Front west of town. Many head straight through the Gap to whatever food source they’re subsisting on to make it through this bottleneck; others switch course over town and head northeast to Bald Eagle Mountain, southeast to Brush Mountain and Plummer’s Hollow, or simply straight up and down the valley. Sometimes, they stall mid-flight and spiral down abruptly, at dizzying speed, through the breeze and drizzle to river and avenue trees. On the 12th, one plummets so quickly it appears to have smashed into the pavement; Dave finds it resting, dead, on a trash can.
I count over 500. Keep in mind that the local breeding territories are all spoken for—it’s not THOSE robins. The locals, most of whom arrived a month or more ago, are too busy fighting. These robin flocks are, I would guess, headed for much farther north.
While I don’t have much time to spend in fields or woods these days, I also get the sense that others are being held up—Golden-crowned Kinglet, Brown Creeper, and the sparrows. Meanwhile, the blackbirds have mostly settled down. A month past are the morning flights of hundreds. What go over now are small groups of courting male and female Brown-headed Cowbirds, and tiny flocks of Common Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds—no more than six at a time, and usually singles and pairs. The evening grackle flocks are larger, sliding back over town at last light, but still not overwhelming in size.
The night has also been a dead zone. Hermit Thrushes and Chipping Sparrows continue to trickle through, and a small sample of Virginia Rails, a Wilson’s Snipe, Green-winged Teals, a single Blue-winged Teal (FOY), and even what sounds like a Red-throated Loon. I would guess there will be a banner night whenever the first south wind happens.
In addition to rainy temperatures in the thirties and forties being the norm, we’ve had a couple unseasonably frigid nights. The coldest is the night of the 8th; by the early morning of the 9th, it reaches 21 degrees at dawn on the balcony, and dips to the teens up on top the Front.
Straight to the Taiga
High hopes for this morning, the first relatively clear one we’ve had this month, though the wind is still not out of the south. I hear the rattle of a Belted Kingfisher from the swollen Little J, a good sign. The local Common Merganser pair commutes high, east to west, and a single Wood Duck, most skittish of the breeding waterfowl this year, goes higher, the other direction. No Hooded Merganser today, but I was quite excited to catch a glimpse of a commuter pair two days ago.
The Mourning Dove couple is hanging about the small trees along Bald Eagle Creek, and even a Fish Crow shows up, perching briefly on a power pole and vocalizing.
At 7:22, a quartet of Double-crested Cormorants emerges from the most distant sky between the eastern mountains. I get a distinct premonition of loons from this—something about the weather and the timing. Sure enough, just as the sun hits the balcony and I prepare to head back inside, a pair of Common Loons appears from behind Bald Eagle Mountain on its species’s favorite flight path, high and fast, straight north.
Not long after noon, the brief clear spell still holding up, I carve out a bit more time for the balcony. The loons are immediate, and I wonder how many went over this morning. They been unleashed in a mad dash from the lakes that were holding them; I watch singles and small groups stream north. Along with a flock of eight Commons is a significantly smaller and slimmer loon: the first Red-throated Loon ever recorded from a vantage point in the hotspot! This species is #232 all-time (publicly-listed; 234 in actuality), putting Plummer’s Hollow in the Top 40 for state hotspots.
Still, no Osprey or Broad-winged Hawks, the last two regular raptors waiting to make the year list. A consolation prize is a bit of a Red-shouldered Hawk flight—three go over in the 40 minutes I’m out there.
Newbies
The trickle of arriving breeders and pass-throughs is low-level but constant through the days of wet. On the 5th, after the downpours stop, I clomp from town to the barn for a clean-up project, and from along the dreary tracks, close to seven, I hear the gorgeous songs of two Hermit Thrushes from different parts of terra nullius, along with the year’s first Brown Thrasher, an overnight arrival. At the same time, a Winter Wren sings, while Golden-crowned Kinglets and Brown Creepers start up their songs as well. The best part of April so far!
Instead of hiking the Hollow road I head straight up the Sapsucker Ridge knife-edge, getting above the echoing songs of Louisiana Waterthrushes, already a week back. I cut across on high trails, every brush of a leafing barberry depositing ticks on my pants, jackets, and arms. Not far back in, the first Blue-headed Vireo sings, and then a pair of Wild Turkeys scoots down through the underbrush and the female begins to screech. An entire lek of five Eastern Phoebes is having at it up in the trees, calling and singing and flying about.
Farther along, the woods are clogged with Dark-eyed Juncos and Northern Cardinals, and I log over a dozen Fox Sparrows, getting a bit late from them. The 40+ Eastern Towhees trip an eBird numbers filter, suggesting they are bottled up. More thrashers and Winter Wrens, and passing by Eric’s house, I hear the Cooper’s Hawks. He’s been watching a pair nesting in the Norway spruce along the driveway—this is closer to a habitation than they’ve nested yet.
The next new species is Ruby-crowned Kinglet, all the way on the 11th. Three are squeaking out their rollicking song, mixed in with bottled-up flocks of golden-crowns and creepers along the river. Then on the 12th, I sight the very first Barn Swallow heading upriver. In the brief moments the setting sun’s rays light up the sycamores off the balcony, I watch 2025’s first Yellow-rumped Warbler, a female, chip quietly as she feeds, flitting from tree to tree downriver and disappearing into the dusk. #108.
Holy Diver
After many hours of hauling old junk out of the dusty entrails of the old barn on Saturday, my lungs and body are in sorry shape on a cloudy Sunday morning in the 40s. I drag myself down the tracks to look for signs of rare warblers—the week ahead will be the year’s best chance for Yellow-throated, never one to be taken for granted, and even an Orange-crowned in the privet isn’t out of the question, as I had two years ago. At first light, the Louisiana Waterthrush who claims the crossing yells abruptly from near the gate, but any other warblers are still a half-hour off or more.
Ever since this winter’s waterfowl haul from the hidden nooks of this stretch of river, I’ve learned exactly the spots to monitor, and I make sure, while the leaves are still not out, to stop at each overlook and scan for multiple seconds, for the grebes and coots, if there are any, are quite adept at staying out of sight. I’m way down at a narrow spot past the crossing when a train comes, so I slide down an open patch to the riverbank in the dim half-light. I scan upriver and down—nothing. I scan several more times as massive freight roars by overhead. There is something, after all—a cormorant-like silhouette way up by the bridge, but it disappears underwater.
I pick my way slowly upriver along the bank clogged with last year’s dry stalks and the tossed remnants of many water rises. Still, easy enough going this early in the season. I startle a kingfisher (later, Eric watches three investigating tree cavities in the lower hollow; off-course migrants?). The diving bird stays mostly out of sight, and at one point I figure it has somehow slid past me downstream. Getting closer, a long look convinces me it’s a loon, before I settle on the much more likely cormorant again. I need more light.
A car lit up with Christmas lights finally leaves the parking spot by the bridge and heads back into town. I settle down to watch what turns out to be what my books tell me is a 1st-year Red-throated Loon. Fabulous luck, on the heels of a fly-over glimpse and a probable NFC. In the local context, not surprising at all: loons of both species have been bottled up on lakes across central Pennsylvania these last few days, so if our tiny stretch of river was going to hold any waterfowl, luck would be with loons.
The loon barely heeds me as it floats backward downstream in the placid part, just to the edge of a 150-meter stretch of rapids, where it dives and then reemerges 10 meters or more upstream. It repeats this a dozen times or more before suddenly emerging with a fish the size of its head. It tilts its head back and relaxes its throat muscles, then shakes its head vigorously in an effort to get the meal down. Somehow, it does, and I watch the bulbous fish slide down and out of sight until only the tail remains. It shakes its head again with great vigor, and the tail disappears. The loon opens it bill wide as if to take a few deep breaths, and then continues it half-submerged loops.
All this time I’m 15 meters away with only a cellphone camera. As usual, I didn’t feel like bringing my big lens. But I figure this loon ain’t going anywhere (though being the smallest of its clan, it should be able to take off again, at least), so I head back to the house to get the camera. This time, I park at the bridge, and the loon is obligingly five meters away, right in the water upstream. I watch a preening session and more loops. I’ll check back in a day or two in hopes of not seeing it.
A change in the weather
Sunday’s winds are still out of the northwest, but by the afternoon, it’s cleared up again for the first time since last Wednesday when I first saw the loons. It’s only in the 50s, but the balcony is baking by 2 PM. Within minutes of settling in, I glimpse the year’s first Osprey following the ridgeline north. A trio of Black Vultures shows up in some building cumulus to the east, five migrant Red-tailed Hawks spiral a few times over the Gap before also continuing on up the ridgeline northeast, and giant Bald Eagles flash white, disappearing in and out of clouds.
At long last, at least two Broad-winged Hawks appear in the far distance, seeming to be almost part of the clouds. There might be more, but they are quickly hidden by the ridge. Tomorrow’s supposed to have a south wind before storms, so a lot more could be on the way.
Wondering whether the robins finally left, I watch the dusk wind-down on the balcony with the ever-attentive Pepe. I don’t quite believe the claim that cats can’t see very well—he focuses on every bird near and far, his head moving with their flights, and no doubt his taste buds quite activated. A few good flocks of robins do return to roost, east to west, adding up to a dozen over a hundred. Grackles are still flocking as well, and later than robins, making it almost to eight. At one point, a Barn Swallow goes over, and nearly at nightfall a Tree Swallow spirals above the river for a bit. A Cooper’s Hawk, first here in town in quite awhile, scatters raucous starlings in every direction.