Week 11 (Mar 5-17 2024)
Highlights
At night, Gadwall and Long-tailed Duck are new for the year
Gull migration, including first-of-year Herring Gulls (Wed)
Red-breasted Mergansers, first-ever sighting for the hotspot (Wed), #224 all-time
A Fish Crow mob invades downtown (Tues)
Red-tailed Hawks tote nesting material (Thurs-Fri)
For 2024, 84 species so far
Log
Mar 11 (Mon). AM: 16 spp. (balcony, 1 hr).
Mar 12 (Tues). AM: 41 spp. (1-mi. hike, 1.75 hrs).
Mar 13 (Wed). AM: 36 spp. (balcony, 2 hrs). PM: 5 spp. (balcony, 30 min.)
Mar 14 (Thurs). AM: 24 spp. (2-mi. hike, 2 hrs).
Mar 15 (Fri). AM: 26 spp. (1.5-mi. hike, 1 hr)
Mar 16 (Sat). AM: 35 spp. (2.5-mi. hike, 2.5 hrs).
The nocturnal flight call recorder I purchased during the pandemic is still going gangbusters. Battered by storms, it sits in its white plastic bucket, strapped to the garage roof and pointed at whatever strange sounds it can sweep out of the sky. The recorder’s debut this year was delayed by weeks, thanks to a frayed cord and before that, a misdelivered refurbished laptop from Amazon. I connect it to a dedicated PC with an ample hard drive and 16Gb of RAM memory, sitting inside a plastic tub inside the garage, among the muddy remains of last year’s phoebe nests. The incandescent bulb of an old desk lamp burns next to the PC, keeping its hard drive alive during colder nights. A maze of connections ensures that the Raven Lite recording program runs 24/7, even though this year, I’m only scanning the nighttime for the best new calls of 2024. (Don’t ask—I’m still buried in September 2023, not yet through my marathon Big Year all-recording analyses).
This week, with warming temperatures and favorable winds, Ring-billed Gull and Killdeer cries sound occasionally, picking up a few of the untold numbers of these species that migrate day and night. Tundra Swans and Canada Geese are also on the move, but what I’m really after are the invisible species that I can’t or won’t see or even hear in the daytime. The Long-tailed Duck was a March specialty I didn’t want to miss, and though it’s a tad too early for a big flight, they can be heard occasionally on both nights, emitting their unmistakable calls, an odd, unbalanced sound somewhere between a goose and a duck, and utterly unique among all the waterfowl. We’ve never seen one fly over during the day, but our proximity to deep-water Raystown Lake a few valleys to the south likely means that we are picking up stopovers from there that are transiting north to the Great Lakes.
Another species best gotten at night in March is the Gadwall. Last year, we had one at the pond, briefly, but this year the best opportunity is picking up the airy, nasal quacks interspersed with wing whistles. As it turns out, it’s a good month for Gadwall, as the antenna picks up several flocks on various nights.
Monday’s Gale
The unsettled March weather start our week at freezing, mostly clear. The first of all fliers this morning is a Turkey Vulture at 7:10 AM up out of the Gap, battling the north wind in an effort to circle. After a few winds, under purplish clouds, it gives up and heads back east. Five minutes later, five wind-tossed American Crows rush over Sapsucker Ridge, and then a Common Raven pops up over by the towers, bobbing like a cork. Two Black Vultures glide into sight the same time, and then a Red-tailed Hawk takes to hovering.
At half-past, four Turkey Vultures and an immature Bald Eagle tilt and dive around, high over the Gap.
Sideways Swans
Despite what I said about not getting back to the powerline sit anytime soon, here I am again on Tuesday at 6:30 AM, getting ready to watch the sun rise over Tussey Mountain. It’s in the 40s and the wind is shifting to the south, herald of a week that may see temperatures top seventy degrees.
As is normal this time of year, the first song, out of absolute silence, is a Northern Cardinal, sounding off just once. Gradually, others stir, calls and songs that start and stop, signaling wake-ups and quick flights away from nocturnal perches. An American Woodcock chuckles from below somewhere, and then a faint Northern Mockingbird. The cardinal sings for the second time at 6:50.
Faint Carolina Wren, distant Wild Turkey. Then, close at hand, the clearest of Song Sparrows, from inside the scrub oaks. At two minutes until seven, five crows dive down silently past me and into the valley. It’s still hardly light.
By 7 AM I’ve detected 14 species, up from six species tallied by this same time (6 AM) the last time I sat here.
Drink your tea! Eastern Towhees are filtering back northward, but this one could easily be the same individual who’s been down in the tangles all winter. And now, the insistent roar of a seemingly gargantuan machine I can’t see starts up out in the valley, overwhelming the more delicate calls: spring farming season seems to be well underway. Not much later, a nearby sawmill is the hub of activity, and a pall of wood smoke drifts west below me, enveloping the trees and fields. Spring peepers are out there too, their sounds mixing with fragments of wren, robin, and mockingbird.
The European Starling commute commences at 7:11 with a tight mob of 30, a gathering of forces for the daily assault on Tyrone. From behind me, a raven wanders over from First Field and loops out into Sinking Valley, where it pirouettes high over the fields.
Movement to my left! A tiny hawk flutters into sight, perhaps up from a nearby roost, gaining its bearing and strength in the breezes. A Sharp-shinned Hawk, maybe a transient but possibly a local, flies over the powerline and keeps going south, following the line of Laurel Ridge. Down in the valley, a female Northern Harrier quarters low over stubble.
The trill of a Field Sparrow can be heard at 7:24 AM, and then the disconnected querulous whistles of Tundra Swans, always heard long before they become visible. After a while, a straggly V of 13 swans appears from behind the trees along the ridge to the north, sort of making progress, heading west. Mostly, they’re blown sideways.
Notable today is the near-complete lack of flying icterids. The crowds that were heading back and forth just last week have evaporated, as the big winter flocks have now splintered into smaller groups. Rusties are moving on, Red-winged Blackbirds are on breeding territories, and Brown-headed Cowbirds are in the forests already. Common Grackles—well, they’re everywhere, not in the hundreds anymore, but still on morning flights to areas where they display (lek?), and clamber among branches, searching out spots to nest.
Back in town, as I get out of the car, I become aware of crows, everywhere. They are on the wires, the posts, in the trees, on the rooftops. A mob of Fish Crows has arrived from downriver, and though I can only count nine at a time, it seems as if there are dozens. Most will move on after a day or two, but a few may stay on and claim breeding territories.
A Good Day for Gulls
On Wednesday at 7 AM it’s in the 40s and cloudy, but we’re anticipating a sunny 70. Robins and Song Sparrows have been up for hours already.
The first movement I see is a Mourning Dove, hurdling up from its creekside perch and out through the Gap. In the calm, the newly resident Eastern Phoebe calls loudly, then House Finches, singing, before the quarter hour. Today seems like the perfect day for the first meadowlark, I tell myself.
Everything that’s local here is already singing, and pairs and trios—not flocks—of them are crisscrossing the sky by 7:20. Grackles. Rock Pigeons. Even House Sparrows, up from one hedge and down in another.
And then at 7:25, I spy a lone Ring-billed Gull, plodding its way north, a few hundred feet up, glancing down and left and right, as gulls do. Farther off to the north, 27 Tundra Swans are on the move, flying straight ahead in the calm air. Not much later, three boisterous Brown-headed Cowbirds arrive in town, the male calling (or is it singing?). I only see them pass on the wing and out of sight, but judging by the gurgling I hear later, they are perched on some tree downtown, not far away.
At twenty until eight, a much larger gull flaps over on the same northward path, with deep, strong wingbeats, and is followed not half a minute later by another. These are the first Herring Gulls of 2024, two of just three expected gull species over the hotspot this year (the other is the diminutive Bonaparte’s, easier to get in the fall).
Robins, at least, are still in flocks—dozens, if no longer hundreds. I’m not sure about the difference between these groups, high up and heading toward the mountains in various directions, and the loud and territorial singles carving up Tyrone’s parking lots. As I watch the robins silhouetted against the horizon, I spot a Merlin flying resolutely past the towers and out of sight eastward.
Once the starlings and grackles are out and about, they take over the morning. Back and forth they fly, from the tall sycamore to my right to the tall poplar to my left, grackles in twos and threes and starlings by the dozens. There seems to be no rancor between these species, nor with the odd House Finches and House Sparrows that hang out with them. For some reason, they startle easily now, perhaps from vehicles on the freeway, as there don’t seem to be any predators about. The starlings also come closer and perch in the nearest sycamores and silver maples, blabbering grotesquely in a dozen alien tongues, shuffling around next to each on branches, while grackles poke into the deepest recesses of the still-nascent Grackleville ‘24, soon to hold who knows how many nests. I’ve even taken to dreaming about nesting grackles, though in my dreams they are sort of hybrid crows and wear helmets fashioned out of bark.
By eight, I’ve logged 27 species already, and it seems like the morning flight is over. For good luck, though, I bring my work computer out so I can keep the tally going. On and on goes the phoebe.
Not much later, the first Great Blue Heron I’ve seen in weeks issues from the Gap and climbs over my head, going south. Like the even scarcer kingfisher, it has perhaps been spooked by so much floodwater. Then a male Common Merganser whirls by over by Sapsucker, number 30.
Suddenly, right in front of me, a male and female House Finch alight on the fire escape grill a few inches away, perhaps curious about my new set-up. For all I know they’re Fern and Fernando from last year’s hanging porch nests. They peer at me and call, then the male sings as they flit out to a near wire. The male keeps singing as he hops toward the female, moving his body this way and that. A few seconds later, they’re gone.
Six more silent Ring-billed Gulls go over. To my right and off in the Gap not too high up, a pair of mergansers is approaching fast. I glass every merg, every time, every day, because one never knows, and this time, it pays off. As they pass almost directly overhead and not far up, I can make out their slim profiles with distinct color patterns that separate them from their more corpulent cousins; these are Red-breasted Mergansers, a sea duck and a first for the hotspot. And so it goes: every year, I manage to get a brief glimpse of a new waterfowl species from among the dwindling list of them that I don’t expect to pick up on the NFC recorder and that would be extremely unlikely to land anywhere in the hotspot (in 2023 it was Bufflehead).
This sighting brings the total Plummer’s Hollow list to 224, tied with Canoe Creek State Park down the road, and scraping the Top 50 eBird hotspots in Pennsylvania.
The show goes on as the air warms. A Fish Crow lands on a sycamore and then on a utility pole, calling and displaying, ruffing out his neck feathers (you can see him above). A Wood Duck hurries into the Gap and down, and finally, at 8:36, a raven decides to show up. Two minutes later, the first Turkey Vulture tilts into sight, rising late today without any early breezes for the assist.
A Mourning Dove is now doing display flights, in courtship mode like many of the other species. Near at hand, a starling checks out an upstairs apartment’s balcony and walls, hopping and pecking about and probing into cracks, all the while doing its best bluebird.
Now it’s 9 AM, and the Fish Crows are all about the wires, cawing and courting. At a quarter past, the last new species of the morning wanders over, an octet of Canada Geese. And at a quarter to ten it all calms down and the town lapses into relative silence, no song to be heard for the first time since before 4 AM. And then, spoiling it, a House Finch starts to sing again.
Late in the sunny, breezy afternoon, I notice a distinct lack of birdlife around when I go out to glance at the sky for raptors. The reason is quickly apparent: a Cooper’s Hawk is perched on the nearest sycamore, facing me and wagging its tail. It flies off toward the junkyard, weaving expertly through the trees. An explosive burst of flycatcher noise follows and the Eastern Phoebe ascends to a high branch, making a dry chip and then some wheezy phoebes. I leave him to his luck.
Red-tails Build a Nest
On Thursday it’s a river jaunt. We’re in the 40s again at dawn, and the weather’s still mostly calm, and as always the Song Sparrows and robins have long been singing when I get into the car and drive to the silent end of terra nullius.
In the gloom, a lone Canada Goose is honking in the pond among the legion of spring peepers and the last of the wood frogs. Three ducks plummet into the water just before seven, but it’s too dark to see what they are. Rural robins are waking up all around, trilling and whispering and shouting, almost sounding like Winter Wren and Song Sparrow mimics today, as these, too, start to vocalize at each other.
The goose goes on honking, and finally, I see the ducks: a Mallard pair and a Wood Duck, the latter scared away almost instantly, and the others not far behind.
At 7:20, around 40 grackles arrive to a morning perch to preen and creak and cackle. The Great Blue Heron flies about, looking for somewhere to land.
On the way back, I spot a Red-tailed Hawk soaring high from Bald Eagle Mountain across to Brush with a small stick jutting out of its beak, in line with its head, like a cigarette.
Six Herring Gulls go over not far up.
At 7:31, a second red-tail crosses the Gap behind me, between Bald Eagle Mt and Laurel Ridge at the closest point. This one is carrying a long, narrow branch or something else, twice its body length; it heads up over the toe of the ridge and keeps going. Perhaps the hawks are building a nest somewhere above the inaccessible tangles on the steep slopes fronting Sinking Valley. In all these years, I don’t believe we’ve ever been able to actually see a Red-tailed Hawk nest in or near the hotspot.
In the afternoon, the mercury climbs above 70 in the shade for the first time in 2024.
On Friday, it’s back to the pond in hopes of an errant Hooded Merganser or something else of interest. Today it’s brushing 60 degrees, very much a day in May, sort of raining and sort of clearing, with clouds rushing by overhead in various directions. According to Eric’s PUC, ring-bills have already gone over, and this could be a day when plenty more show up.
Suffering from an incredibly loud train (and then three more), I don’t hear many birds wake up, but am treated to an early gathering of some 25 Turkey Vultures who float in from various directions under the dark and roiling storm clouds and kettle for a few minutes in the middle of the Gap. Then, they break off in small groups and head to the cardinal points over the tips of the ridges.
Later, I am startled by an apparition. Looking like a giant, streamer-tailed flycatcher or outside quetzal, a Red-tailed Hawk pops out from behind Bald Eagle Mountain clutching a huge strip of flexible inner bark in its talons. The bark strip is some three times its body length and streams behind it like outlandish tail plumes. It struggles to carry the ungainly burden across the Gap and, seeing me, alights in a tree above the tracks to see what I might be up to. This immediately brings the nearest American Crows to investigate.
At 60 degrees, the wind is now from the southwest, and a tom Wild Turkey cruises across as if following the red-tail. It alights somewhere up on the Laurel knife-edge, and immediately, the sounds of females erupt from around where it landed.
The red-tail, harried by crows, abandons its objective, turning around and heading off toward the river and downstream, out of sight, still toting its bark strip. Gnat clouds are out now, and I’m batting them away from my face. The privets are leafing out everywhere, and the red maples have now followed the silvers into flower.
At 8 AM, the red-tail again crosses the Gap in the direction of the putative nest site, this time without its tail streamers.
A Tantalizing Coot
Over the weekend, our schedules are thrown into disarray by a series of hospital night shifts. On Saturday, a bit late, I finally get to carry out my plan to surveil some nearby waterholes for exotic species from perches at the hotspot’s high points. Unfortunately, the weather turned cold on Friday night, making for a gorgeous and cloudless Saturday, but bitter on the slopes.
First up are the vernal ponds on the top of Sapsucker Ridge, now filled with masses of wood frog eggs. No Wood Ducks here right now, but they do hang about some years, possibly nesting not far away.
The “I-99 Tipton Wetland” is the richest wetland in the immediate area, a mitigated, human-constructed site just the other side of the interstate and the Little Juniata River, bordering the Plummer’s Hollow hotspot. I figured out last week that I can see parts of it through thinned trees prior to leaf-out, from near the very highest point on our property, just off the ridgetop, sitting among oak trees on a forest floor scoured clean by the wind. While a few feet away in the Far Field it’s sheltered and somewhat warm (40s), here it’s unbearably frigid, and I’m not dressed for it. There’s no way I can sit here long and see what floats out there, so I pack up and head to the next spot, a pond near the sawmill and powerline cut.
On the way, along the road to the Far Field, I sit for a few minutes to enjoy a seldom-hear chorus of courting Brown Creepers up in the treetops.
The sawmill pond is vacant and with time against me and editing deadlines looming, I decide against a full pond circuit today and instead head back to the garage to collect the week’s NFCs.
That evening, after dropping off Paola, I decide to check out the I-99 wetland in person, amazed as always at the rich and structured habitat tucked between so much humanity, but so infrequently visited. Literally the first thing I spot after the ubiquitous Red-winged Blackbirds is a species we haven’t ever had in the hotspot, a near impossibility to see in the air or hear overhead, an American Coot. It is puttering about but when it sees me it swims quickly into cover. Eight Wood Ducks, skittish as always, move away from me and then take off, but circle widely for several minutes before alighting in a harder-to-reach part of this hotspot. I remember a trail back along the river, and in the gathering dusk, I spook two pairs of Hooded Mergansers, who head up the Little J.: another species that’s close to impossible to get in the neighboring hotspot.
On Sunday evening, I return a bit earlier to the wetland with a better plan. I move around the back edge along the river again and go downstream as far as I can, keeping a line of brush between me and the water impoundment. The coot is still here, along with a lone male Common Merganser, Canada Geese, a pair of Mallards, Wood Ducks, and a pair of Green-winged Teals.