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a place to express my love for birds |
This is a blog/journal about birds and birding. I grew up watching birds, as I lived in a rural area with farms, fields and forests. As an adult, I got into "serious" birding around the year 2015 when I went on my first "guided" bird walk at a local state park in Pennsylvania. In 2017, I kept track of how many different species I could spot in one year, which was 137. In 2017, I saw 201 species! So I have some goals for 2019: Five "lifers" (A "lifer" is a bird I have never seen/identified before) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Enter a checklist every day on www.ebird.org Visit 10 new "hotspots" (popular birding sites like parks, gamelands and sanctuaries) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.  Sharp-shinned Hawk in my backyard, December 2017  Snowy Owl in Fleetwood, PA, January 2018 |
| Not a whole lot of birding going on lately with the snow and ice we've had, but I did go out on my birthday and got one new species, #56, Hermit Thrush. This week the weather warmed up a bit and I got out twice! Yesterday I went to the game lands again and I was surprised to hear a "honking" coming from overhead. I looked up and saw an all-white bird. My first thought was, "Snow Goose!" but that seemed unlikely. Snow Geese tend to travel in packs (I've ever seen one Snow Goose traveling with a flock of Canada Geese!) and after playing a few calls on my phone, I realized it was #57, Trumpeter Swan! They're pretty rare in my county, so it was a nice one! There were also at least 100 Red-winged Blackbirds there chattering up a storm! I went for another walk today since it was in the 40s when I got up (funny how that seems so warm in Winter!). I only saw lots of American Crows (and a deer and a rabbit), but I did hear Song Sparrows singing, which is a sign of Spring coming! I'm currently on eagle watch. There are two Eagle nest cameras set up in Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Hays Nest  just laid their second egg of the season and The Hanover Nest is still awaiting its first egg, any time now! I have another bird walk with a local bird club on Saturday! I love getting to go birding with so many other bird-watchers!  |
I went to the game lands again this morning. No new species, but I did see a male Northern Harrier, the "Grey Ghost."  It was so exciting! For whatever reason, it seems more common to see the female, and this was my first glimpse of a male! It was very cool! (I also spotted two Red-tail Hawks while I was there and flocks of Cedar Waxwings and Red-wing Blackbirds)Photos of the male Northern Harrier (Three photos, you can scroll through them)In the evening, poisonivy  and I drove to see #55, Short-eared Owls! There were three of them and another male Harrier (along with a female Harrier)!It was an exciting birding day!  |
I think my new lens is causing me shoulder pain! Yesterday I felt stabs of pain like an electrical shock in my shoulder and my side. (Googling says it could be a "stinger," which is normally a sports injury from a body slam or jerking your neck suddenly) I'm just assuming it's from holding up that 3.5 lens.  Yesterday I went for a walk at my favorite game lands. I didn't see anything new for the year, but I did hear and see a Red-tail Hawk that was calling a lot. After viewing my photos of the hawk, I realized it's a Northern or "Borealis" type of Red-tail Hawk! This type has been seen in our county, but not in this area! It was pretty exciting to see it there! Photos from yesterday's walk Sunday is my birthday, but it's going to snow so I'm not sure I'll get out to see any birds. Tomorrow my sister and I (we're twins so it's her birthday, too) are going out to try to see a Short-eared Owl! That will be another lifer for me if we find it! Actually there are about 5 of them that regularly hunt in the fields of this one area and people have been photographing them every evening for weeks now, so it's a pretty good chance we'll see it! |
| While on the bird walk last week, there were many Eastern Bluebirds near a historic site, the McClure House along Ft McClure Blvd in Bloomsburg. I snapped a photo of one perched on the sign for the house and I submitted it to the local newspaper. They ran the photo in today's edition! I worked for another newspaper years ago and had many photos and stories printed, but this one is really special! It's my first bird photo in a newspaper!  I'm happy to help promote local birding, nature and conservation, as well as the local birding group! |
| I found out today that my new lens isn't great in low light. Maybe if I get a tripod/monopod, it will be better. It was overcast this morning when I went to local game lands. Most of my photos didn't come out well, but I did get this photo of #53, Cedar Waxwings and I saw #54, Northern Mockingbird. I have a busy week of work ahead of me, but I still try to find time to watch for birds as I'm driving all over my county. The feeders in my backyard have been kind of quiet lately. I'm thinking the Sharp-shinned Hawk may have been back for a visit recently, spooking all the little birds. I do see some flitting about, but not as many as usual. |
| If you choose your bird walks well, you'll see a lot of species! Walks that are advertised through local parks may get a lot of families with kids, and if you're a family with kids, that's great! If you're a serious birder, it might not be the best... Kids can get bored with birding and start making a lot of noise or running around or what have you, and that can make it hard to hear the birds or the guide... I went on a bird walk with a local birding group this morning, and I got four new species, including two lifers! I tried out my new lens, and I'm still learning, so my photos aren't the best. I did get this photo of an Eastern Screech Owl that was sleeping! Soooo adorable! I think Saw-whet Owls are the cutest owls that we have here in Pennsylvania, but these guys are a very close second!I love owls. My new species today were: #48. Red-breasted Merganser. #49, Common Goldeneye. #50, Hairy Woodpecker. #51, Yellow-rumped Warbler (fairly rare for our area in Winter but they've been seen in this spot before at this time of year) and #52, Eastern Screech Owl. It really, really helps to go out with knowledgeable guides and fellow birders! I'm not very good with waterfowl, so I don't think I would have identified the two new ones without others there! We walked about 3.5 miles in four hours and saw 26 species! A great birding morning! |
| Lots of new common birds this week: #44, American Robin #45, Tundra Swan #46, Sharp-shinned Hawk #47, Turkey Vulture I got a new toy for my upcoming birthday! It's not one of the $1k super awesome lenses that I'd love to own one day. It's a cheaper $100 manual 500mm lens. It allows me a much closer view, but I have to manually focus it. It weighs about 3.5 lbs so it's kind of heavy, too. Thankfully, it fits my telescope tripod, so that will help! I can't wait to try it out some more!I did visit a local Bald Eagle nest today. The first time I drove by, both eagles were in the nest! When I drove by later, both eagles were sitting in a tree near the road. I took these two photos to compare the new 500mm lens to my original 50mm lens.I'm going on a bird walk tomorrow, and the weather is going to be great! |
| Winter can be so tough because I want to get new bird species as quickly as possible, but the weather doesn't always cooperate. One good side effect of cold snaps is that 30 degrees feels warm after single digits! On Saturday I was at my Dad's and I always check out his feeder while I'm there. He's on the edge of a forest and farther north so he'll get different birds than I will on the edge of a town. I saw #41, Common Grackles, at his house. They're a very common bird, but not usually in Winter. That seems to be a theme this year! A lot of birds must have decided not to go south this Winter... Yesterday I went birding with my sister in her area. There's a known Eastern Screech Owl that hangs out in one tree. It wasn't there! I'll have to try again. We did see #42, Horned Larks, in a field near my sister's house. They like farm fields and they're super hard to see because they blend right into the mud and corn stalks. It's much easier to see them in the snow!Today I drove to an area in my county known for Horned Larks (I'm trying to get as many species inside my county as I can so I can finish the year among the top birders of my county) and I also heard #43, Lapland Longspur, hanging out with the Horned Larks! I couldn't spot it (the snow had melted in these fields so they were all hard to see) but I clearly heard it singing and one has been heard/seen in that area recently, too. I think working on completed a checklist daily has helped me "get through" January easier this year! It gives me something to look forward to every day! |
| poisonivy and I had an epic birding day today! She started off by hearing a Great-Horned Owl while walking her dog early this morning and then while I was at a dentist visit, she watched a known Eastern Screech Owl sunning itself in a hollowed out tree. We thought we'd go for a streak of owls so that she could have three in one day, so we headed out to see the Snowy Owl. We totally lucked out and spotted it right away right next to the road! I got this amazing photo ! I think that could be one of my best ever bird photos! I'm still in shock over it!After that, we drove to a nearby road where there were sightings of a Red-headed Woodpecker from early in January. We didn't expect to see it since there weren't any sightings since, but we figured we'd check since we were in the area. It's also one of our "dream" lifers. We drove to an area that's known to have them last year, but we didn't see one. Today, we saw two people standing on the side of the road looking at some trees with binoculars, and guess what they were looking at?! #37, Red-headed Woodpecker! Woot! In the area, we also saw four Red-tail Hawks! It's a lot of farm land so I guess it attracts a lot of mice, rats, etc., and the birds come to feast! It was such an awesome birding day! (Also, I apparently forgot three species from recent trips! My numbers weren't matching up and I realized I forgot two: #38, Red-bellied Woodpecker and #39, Golden-crowned Kinglet, and #40, American Goldfinch), so I'm at 40 now! When I set a "lifer" goal of five birds for this year, I thought I was being unrealistic. It's only two weeks into the new year, and I have two lifers already! |
| We had another pretty good day of birding! My sister came to visit and we went to the nearby game lands where I spotted the Rough-legged Hawk earlier this week. We saw it again! None of us got any good photos but we all got a good look at it (My sister and I met up with another birder and his daughter who were looking for the same hawk). While there, I got three new species for the year, #34, Red-wing Blackbird, #35, Northern Harrier, and #36, Swamp Sparrow. The Swamp Sparrow and Northern Harrier were both surprises. Swamp Sparrows aren't normally found in our area in Winter (they pass through in Fall and Spring during migration) and the Northern Harrier has been in that spot before but it was surprising to see it right after seeing the Rough-legged Hawk. I would think they would be rivals as they're about the same size and after the same prey! (They even look similar but while the Harrier has a white patch on its rump, the hawk's tail is actually white. It's easy to confuse the two.) Tomorrow Ivy and I are headed to see the Snowy Owl again (she hasn't seen it yet this year), and there have been a few sightings of a Red-headed Woodpecker in the area, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that we might get to see that one, too! It was barely in the double digits in temps today but it didn't feel too terrible in the sunlight. There wasn't much wind, too. It looks like it could be in the 50s again by next weekend! Our winters tend to be a bit all over the place, but we're really dealing with extremes this year it seems! |
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