Highlights
A waterfowl fallout across the local region delivers us a Bufflehead, first-ever January record.
An elusive Field Sparrow brings the January total to 58 species, one ahead of last year’s total for the month.
American Robins and European Starlings in large numbers are feasting on Tyrone’s dried fruit bonanza, as a Cooper’s Hawk picks them off.
Log
Jan. 15 (Mon). AM: 23 spp. (1-mi., 2-hr hike)
Jan 16 (Tues). AM: 6 spp. (0.5-mi., 1-hr hike)
Jan 17 (Wed). AM: 15 spp. (balcony, 40 min)
Jan 18 (Thurs). AM: 11 spp. (1-mi., 40-min hike)
Jan 20 (Sat). AM: 12 spp. (balcony, 45 min)
Jan 21 (Sun). AM: 27 spp. (2-mi., 2.5-hr hike)
Single Digits
Monday, a holiday, is calm and quiet. The temperature is around 6F. Not long before 7 AM, I wallow through the layers of snow up to the sit spot in the neck of First Field. I sip on hot bone broth and wait for sound and movement.
The wait is brief. A Northern Cardinal abruptly breaks the silence with the cheeriest of its songs, and moments later, an Eastern Towhee reeps twice. White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos are on the move, caroling and twittering as they make their ways toward the feeders. A Hermit Thrush clucks from a nearby thicket.
By 7:30, American Tree Sparrows, Song Sparrows, White-breasted Nuthatches, robins, American Goldfinches, and an Eastern Bluebird are all active. I manage to make my way slowly up almost to the spruce grove to listen for anything different, but only the regulars are about. Five species of woodpeckers are calling and some are already drumming.
By 8:15, it’s dead silent and dead calm, as if nothing were happening.
Fallout!
An overnight snowstorm continues into Tuesday morning. As the morning progresses, reports start coming in of a rare January waterfowl fallout. People are reporting having heard Tundra Swans and Long-tailed Ducks going over last evening, and today, wildlife rehabilitators in the area are getting calls about Horned Grebes in parking lots and on other shiny surfaces. This is very bad news, as grebes (and loons) can’t take off without a water runway. Meanwhile, I’m stuck at work, but as soon as that’s over, I strap on the gear and head for the river.
A few hundred feet below the Plummer’s Hollow bridge is a long, calm section of river without rapids. Not long ago, I surprised a Double-crested Cormorant here, so I’m on the lookout for diving ducks that might have been forced down in this section. Almost immediately, the unmistakable, perfect plumage of a male Bufflehead in full breeding plumage pops into view from behind some willows. Three pairs of Mallards are swimming nearby, but the buffie steals the show. As he gradually drifts downstream and away from me, he dives repeatedly.
A little bit later, he has a brief preening session.
Last year was the first time ever I was able to record Buffleheads in the hotspot. The two records consisted of a rapid dawn balcony flyby of three on March 30, and then a female on April 22 who stuck around the confluence long enough for me to get some decent photos.
After today’s experience, I’m half-expecting find something downed on the pond, but despite the area of shiny ice and a small patch of open water, nothing is there.
Discussions online later reveal that the waterfowl movement was likely from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic or one of its bays, a result of the lakes beginning to freeze up. They collided with a storm moving northeast.
Wednesday’s balcony is windy and cloudy, but no rare species (like Great Lakes gulls) turn up in the skies. In keeping with every year, no Great Blue Heron is anywhere about; they seem to disappear from the hotspot for a brief period every January, before returning toward the end of the month.
With food resources increasingly scarce and difficult to access, there is a sense of desperation in the air this morning, and birds are on the move and vocal by 7:15 AM. As usual, robins and House Finches are leaving town and heading east, some no doubt to Plummer’s Hollow.
At ten till 8, a medium-sized woodpecker is buffeted in over my head, and settles unsteadily on a fruit tree on 10th Street. Quite unexpectedly, it’s a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, which I don’t ever remember seeing from the balcony before. As it gets ready to depart, a Northern Flicker calls from somewhere beyond the confluence, another unusual species for a January balcony. To top off the odd occurrences, a Tufted Titmouse alights on an electric line and hops along it to explore some of the wiring around a pole.
Deer Crossing
On Thursday morning I take one last look at the pond, but despite a small strip of open water remaining not far from a seep, it’s been abandoned by the ducks. Down in Redstart Swamp, five White-tailed Deer crash through the layers of crust and wallow among the privets. Their deceased cousin is now being rapidly skeletonized by corvids. They come out onto the tracks ahead of me on my way back, cross and then scramble straight up Laurel Ridge like mountain goats; within a couple minutes, they are already at the knife-edge and then out of sight.
Two Golden-crowned Kinglets are still hanging out in the fringe of trees between the tracks and the river. I have to wonder whether any Hermit Thrushes or Winter Wrens are left down here, or if they’ve moved to more sheltered locations (the tracks are our own little Siberia in these types of conditions).
Cornucopia
At last, by Friday, conditions are harsh enough that hundreds of starlings and robins have begun to strip the fruit in earnest. Throughout the day, they gather in wheeling clouds, just like last year, congregating in the tall trees and then splitting into small groups and descending to feed. They are undeterred by the fifth-or-so snowstorm in 10 days (or something: I’ve lost count), and several them, robins included, are singing. Starling are doing Killdeer and half-a-dozen other birds.
At times during the day, from my office chair, I hear the calls of a Cooper’s Hawk in the street, on the hunt.
By Saturday it’s back to single digits, but the weather’s still cloudy and breezy. Not until 7:23 does the first bird, a fast-flying robin, make an appearance. Within minutes, a shape darts past me, mere yards away, toward the river and out of sight: the Cooper’s Hawk again, my favorite velociraptor, already on the prowl.
Robins and House Finches leave town as starlings arrive. American Crows, one by one, drift over from the east. An adult Bald Eagle heads downriver, and soon, the finches are singing.
Right at eight, three massive shapes appear and begin to swoop and dive over Bald Eagle Mountain. They’re quickly joined by a pair of smaller birds. The larger ones are an adult Bald Eagle and two juveniles, and the smaller ones are Common Ravens. The eagles and corvids soon go their separate ways. The ravens remind me of last January’s junkyard raven, a fixture in these parts. It was almost always the first to vocalize, and many were the times it eyeballed me from a nearby perch. Presumably, I’ll never know what became of it.
Back to Basics
On Sunday, I return to the mountain for the last of the sub-freezing days. Next week comes a warm up, and I’m expecting the year’s first vultures and maybe a few other new species to round out the month and hopefully reach the 60-species mark. This morning, however, despite a temperature in the low 20s, the wind chill makes things brutal at the neck of First Field. I hollow out a hide in foot-deep snow and wait for the junco and white-throat commute to what surely is a mob scene at Mom’s feeders. At last, I detect a Field Sparrow, one that is quite difficult to find most winters.
It’s as bare-bones as a dawn can get up here, so I decide to slog my way up to the Sinking Valley overlook on Laurel Ridge. The west wind is gentler over here in the silent woods of chestnut oak and mountain laurel, and the only sign of life by 7:30 is a lone crow.
On the mountain’s south-facing lee side, deep tangles are alive with tree sparrows and Song Sparrows, and after I pish a few times, a curious flicker shows up. A Hermit Thrush clucks a couple times, and a Red-tailed Hawk flushes from the base of the hill and heads off toward an old quarry. Blue Jays call. One after another, Amish buggies move hurriedly along the high road through the fields.
As I pass the houses on the way back to the car, I see that, indeed, the ground around the feeders is clogged with birds, dominated by juncos and white-throats. Downy Woodpeckers come and go, and a lone cardinal stands out from the gray-and-brown multitude.
In the Hollow, the freshly-plowed road surface exposes bare earth for juncos and white-throats to feed here and there in small flocks. Below the Big Pulloff, three goldfinches fly down to drink from the stream. I stop to see if any Winter Wrens are about, and after a few bars of their song, one flies across from the far slope to investigate. It perches a few feet above the ground and sings lustily, while another sings from down near the stream.