drew's blog

Middle Creek WMA

2006-12-03T16:07:00.000-05:00

Well, the Sandhill Crane is still at Middle Creek. Its been there for several weeks now and I have to wonder if its because of the nice fall weather we have been having. With this recent cold snap and possible snow tomorrow morning I wonder if its going to take off and head down to Florida. Unfortunately it was too far away to get a good enough view to take pictures but maybe I will post them later after I have gone through all my images.
The ducks were nice, with the shovelers being very photogenic. I even took a digivid of them swirling around and "shoveling" which I had never seen so upclose before.

As i was leaving a Red-tailed Hawk flew over the road and landed very close so I pulled over. When it didn't fly I decided to pull out the scope and miracle of miracles it stayed put only 10ft off of the road for at least 10 minutes while I snapped about 60 pictures of it at different angles. Here is the only one I edited so far, and it is not the best shot I got.

Cool Owl Videos

2006-12-01T12:15:00.000-05:00

I have recently run across several cool owl videos. This first one is from 2006 in nw Montana where they had a large number of Snowy Owls move into the area. Check it out on explorebiodiversity.com.

This second video is a Barred Owl being attacked by a pair of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. It is amazing how calm this owl is as the birds bombard his head.

And lastly, here is some footage of a Burrowing Owl, a western species that actually lives in the ground.

Hawk Trapping

2006-11-23T09:56:00.000-05:00

I went hawk trapping on Wednesday near Bedford, PA with the goal of trapping Golden Eagles. During the time that I was at the station we saw 29 Golden Eagles and 1 adult Bald Eagle but no eagles flew into our traps. Luckily we did catch two Red-tailed Hawks and banded them.

Both times that we caught the red-tails Jon Good and I were up at the hawk watch above the trapping station and got to watch the birds fly in, look down at the trap and dive straight down to it. That was a pretty spectacular flight. Then we drove down to the trapping station as quickly as we could.

Hawk Mountain movie clip

2006-10-26T00:46:00.000-04:00

Berks.tv recently did a short feature on Hawk Mountain and so you can listen and watch the president, Lee Schisler talk about the migration and history on Berks.tv.

The Halloween Post

2006-10-26T00:08:00.000-04:00

We all had a great time at the haunted house and the corn maze was also a lot of fun. The scariest part of the haunted house was the room that slowly started closing in on you...I was glad I am not claustrophobic.
Tomorrow the fun is going to continue with some pumpkin carving at Shaumboch's and then Friday evening we are having a Halloween party at the same place.

Keeping with the scary Halloween theme, here is a picture of a Black Vulture, because thats the scariest I can do.

Busy week

2006-10-20T15:54:00.000-04:00

This was an incredibly busy week. Let's see, we went shopping for winter boots for the other interns on Tuesday, grocery shopping on Wednesday, Thursday was a talk on mountain gorillas at Kutztown University and now today we are going to a corn maze and haunted house! Here is a picture of a large boot we found while shopping...

I got rained out twice this week at the North Lookout, the second time was today and I spent a pleasant hour at the top in clouds until I figured no birds were gonna be coming. That was a good decision because soon after the rain came hard.

Tomorrow Justine and some of her Messiah friends are coming to Hawk Mountain for the afternoon.

Fall colors and slow/busy weekend

2006-10-10T21:23:00.000-04:00

The leaves are getting better everyday up at Hawk Mountain, maybe in one or two weeks they will reach their peak.

Here is the view from River View Overlook, one of the "secret lookouts."

Columbus Day weekend was incredibly slow for birds but very busy for visitors. On Sunday I think we had over 1,500 visitors going up the mountain at least as far as the South Lookout. It was too bad we barely got over 100 birds each of the three days. This coming weekend looks like it will be a lot better because a cold front will be going through tonight and then another on Friday night. We will see what happens.

Last night the guys had a fun time grilling chicken and hanging out while the girls were still up at North Lookout.

Longwood

2006-10-07T22:47:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I posted anything because I have been too busy. I had Thursday afternoon and all day Friday off so I got to watch Justine's field hockey team play Donegal and then visit Jon Thom @ Longwood Gardens. The gardens were pretty cool and in full bloom. The indoor gardens were particularly cool as well as the ponds with water lilies.

Tomorrow is the Big Sit! and I am gonna see if tomorrow's counters want to participate in that at all. It's a national event, with teams competing to see how many species they can see and hear from inside a 17-ft diameter circle.

This weekend is particularly long because we are going to be doing programs on Monday as well because of Columbus Day. I had the Raptor Study Techniques program today with Talal and I don't have it for the rest of the weekend so the "hardest" part is over. Tomorrow I will be at the North Lookout in the morning and at South in the afternoon. The winds look like they will change to NW in the afternoon and so the flight could be very good. Monday is supposed to also be NW winds so it could also be a good flight day. We had our second Golden Eagle today, as well as my 2nd Red-shouldered Hawk of the season so the later birds are already here. Now we are just waiting on Goshawk and Roughleg.

Back from Cape May

2006-09-23T22:17:00.000-04:00

Our trip to Cape May was very good and packed. We arrived at the Cape May Point State Park for the hawk watch around noon and were treated to fantastic views of Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks as well as the three falcons, American Kestrel, Merlin and Peregrine Falcon. We stayed at the hawkwatch platform for quite a while as the flight was exceptionally good and around 5 headed to the end of Sunset Blvd to see if we could see any of the Merlins chasing dragonflies for their evening meal. We saw quite a few Merlins ripping the wings off of dragonflies while they were flying and also got to watch two Harriers gliding over the grasses. That was all the birding that was accomplished on Thursday.
On Friday we got up pretty early so that we could get to Higbee's Beach WMA and watch the warbler flight there. Cape May Bird Observatory has a tower set up along the beach in a break in the trees that warblers will fly across in the hundreds or even thousands on a good morning. The challenge is to identify the warblers (and other songbirds in their drabber fall plumages) while they are flying past you, one of the biggest challenges in bird ID. I had good looks at Black-and-white Warblers, Northern Parulas, American Redstarts and Red-eyed Vireos. From Higbee's we went back to CMP State Park to do some hawk trapping, catching about a dozen birds (Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks) at the station I was at. Here I am holding a Cooper's Hawk.

We trapped until noon when we headed back to the hawk watch and stayed for several hours until it slowed down. Along the beach there were more Palm Warblers than I think I have seen in my entire life. There were quite tame and allowed me to get some good photos.

Ducks were also becoming more numerous in the ponds at the state park although most were in their eclipse plumage which is mostly brownish and makes most of the species of ducks look similar.

We then headed up the coast stopping at several locations along the way to see cirds such as American Oystercatcher, Willet, Ruddy Turnstone and best of all, one Marbled Godwit! At Stone Harbor Point there was not much except some Caspian Terns and also some Black-bellied Plovers that I got this picture of...

It was a very good trip. Today it rained most of the day so we were not up at the lookouts, giving us a much needed break. Justine came up for a couple hours and that was fantastic to see her. A great ending to a great week.

Weekend Photos

2006-09-18T22:45:00.000-04:00

The weekend was fairly slow, hawkwise, with only a couple hundred birds each day. The highlight on Saturday was the Black Vultures that perched so picturesquely at the front of the lookout.

Cedar Waxwings have also been a big hit, with up to 2,000 being counted one day. They enjoy eating the berries from the mountain ash bushes that are on the lookout.

Rainy Day

2006-09-15T14:29:00.000-04:00

Today I was supposed to count on the North Lookout but the rain was a spoiler. I stayed at the lookout long enough to get good looks at a Blackpoll Warbler and two Ruffed Grouse and then hiked back down. Our excitement yesterday was when a Chipping Sparrow hit the window and was stunned for a while, letting me get good pictures of it. It then took off a little later and seemed fine. There was a Sharp-shinned Hawk flying around and I think the hawk scared the sparrow into the window.

Cape May canceled

2006-09-14T13:53:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately due to the rainy weather our field trip to Cape May was postponed until next week. On the bright side I did see my life Connecticut Warbler today in the rain.

Record Broadwings

2006-09-14T13:30:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday I was assigned to be at the South Lookout, counting whatever hawks were migrating past. Well soon after I arrived at the lookout at 9am I got a call from the other lookout that there was a huge Broad-winged Hawk migration under way. The sky looked something like the picture on the left for the next 2 hours. The first hour I counted 1500 Broadwinged Hawks flying over and then between 10 and 11 I counted 4000 Broadwings flying over! Hawk Mountain ended up with 7508 Broadwings for the day, the 5th highest count ever at Hawk Mountain and the highest in the last 25 years. It was what the original curator Maurice Broun would have called a red letter day. The biggest day on record was over 21,000 Broadwinged Hawks in one day.

Banding

2006-09-14T12:41:00.000-04:00

On Sunday I got to help out some of the Hawk Mountain staff demonstrate bird banding for the Field Ornithology class. We had some luck and caught 3 Common Yellowthroats, 1 Ovenbird, and 2 Catbirds and one Traill's Flycatcher.

from upper left going clockwise-

Ovenbird, Common Yellowthroat, Gray Catbird, and Traill's Flycatcher

Orientation

2006-09-05T13:00:00.000-04:00

The orientation has been going well. This past weekend was the first that interns spent at the lookouts and the different programs.
Here are some of the interns at the South Lookout...

I was scheduled to be at some of the Raptors Up Close programs and got to hold a Great Horned Owl afterwards. I have also gotten to hold a Broad-winged Hawk and a Red-tailed Hawk.

Later I held the 20-something year old Barred Owl. Good times!

Philly Phield Trip

2006-08-27T12:02:00.000-04:00

On Friday we went to the Villanova and the Philly Zoo before heading to Newark to pick up the last intern, Leo. At Villanova we were shown the chickadee lab where they are studying the hybridization between Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees that is occuring in PA.

At the Zoo we spent a while seeing the sights.

We were also fortunate enough to get a behind the scenes look at the new White Rhino as well as feed some cooperative Hornbills.

We then went to South Street to get some supper and see the sights and ended up eating at Jon's Bar & Grill which is the birthplace of one of the 3 Stooges.

Then we headed off to Newark and picked up Leo with no problem and headed back to HMS, arriving around midnight.

Starting at Hawk Mountain

2006-08-23T15:30:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I arrived at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary to begin my 4 month long internship there. The other interns were supposed to arrive at Newark in time to be back to the Sanctuary by 8 but it was around 11pm when they pulled in. The other interns are Laura from Costa Rica, Lale from Turkey, Talal from Palestine and then the last intern who we will pick up in Philly on Friday is Leo from Papua New Guinea.

We got the tour this morning and then headed up to the North Lookout (NLO) where we spent 2 hours waiting for raptors to show up. We saw several Red-tailed Hawks, both vultures, 1 immature Broadwinged Hawk, some unidentified warblers and a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Tonight we are going grocery shopping and hopefully other exciting things.

Snowy Egret immature

2006-08-13T17:41:00.000-04:00

Snowy Egret immature

After spending a couple hours at the Conejohela Flats, I headed to Wildwood Nature Center with Cameron Rutt to check out the reported Snowy Egret. We easily found the bird and took many pictures of it.

Cape May and Brigantine birding

2006-08-10T14:48:00.000-04:00

I spent August 4-7 in New Jersey with Justine, hanging out and birding. I started off Saturday morning at the Dike at Higbee's Beach WMA where I met Pete Dunne and Richard Crossley. Unfortunately there was not much stuff about by the time I got there. I did have some luck with shorebirds around Nummy's Island and Ocean Drive though and got several good pictures.

The next day I spent driving around the wildlife drive at Edwin B. Forsythe where I got nice pictures of a Forster's Tern and several Osprey. I also had good looks at Short-billed and Long-billed Dowitchers, Least, Semipalmated and Western Sandpipers, Semipalmated and Black-bellied Plovers and Whimbrels.

On Monday I went back to Cape May where I birded the Cape May Point State Park where I took this picture of a Great Egret. At Beaver Swamp I saw the lone sandhill crane and then headed back south for the evening hign tide. I drove along Ocean Drive where there was a good number of peeps and then headed up to Nummy's Island where the tide was too high for most birds. I had large flocks of dowitchers and Whimbrels fly over and noticed that Stone Harbor Point was just covered in sandpipers so I drove over there where the highlight was about 12 Piping Plovers.

End of summer job

2006-07-16T14:03:00.000-04:00

Well, I officially ended my summer of doing point counts all around Pennsylvania. I had a great time in Potter County where I camped every night. On the point counts in Potter County I had a great abundance of breeding Blackburnian, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green and Chestnut-sided Warblers. I also got to see several black bears, porcupines and salamanders. Now I am just waiting for my internship at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary to begin in mid-August.

WSB Report 2006

2006-05-15T21:48:00.000-04:00

Well, the World Series of Birding (WSB) is all over and I thought you might want to know how the day went. If the suspense is too much for you just scroll down to the bottom of the page to see how many species my team saw and how we placed. If you want to know about any of the birds I mention just go to http://birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/.

The WSB started for me on Wednesday afternoon when I went to New Jersey to meet my teammates Mike Lanzone (my boss this summer), Andy McGann and Lewis Grove (my co-workers for this summer). We immediately started to scout out where certain birds were, particularly nesting hawks and marsh birds that were harder to find. We scouted north New Jersey on wednesday and then southern NJ on Thursday and Friday before heading up north to Hyper Humus, a large marsh. After about an hours nap for me, the WSB started at midnight, Friday night. With a full moon shining down we waited and listened as Virginia Rail's called from far off. We also heard Lincoln's, White-throated, and White-crowned Sparrow's flying overhead making the little noises they do while they migrate. Several shorebirds called from the marsh including Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, as well as Least, Semi-palmated and Spotted Sandpipers. Then off in the distance we heard what we had been waiting for, the uncommon King Rail. Once we heard that, we took off sprinting the 1/2 mile to the van so we could go scout out other marshy areas for other species, stopping our run only long enough to hear the whinnying call of the Eastern Screech Owl. A stop at one marsh gave us Least Bittern and American Bittern as well as a screeching Barn Owl. We drove to some nice wooded areas and called for owls and were rewarded with a Barred Owl. At another site, we heard a Northern Saw-whet Owl answer our calls immediately followed by a bear screaming at us. Needless to say we left quickly. At 3:20am we drove to a location were we had seen a Common Raven nesting and saw it perched on the building where it was sleeping. We began to hear the distinctive call of migrating thrushes flying north overhead including Gray-cheeked Thrush, Swainson's Thrush, Veery, Hermit Thrush and Wood Thrush.

Just before 5am we drove to some grassy fields and heard Savannah Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow and Vesper Sparrow singing. To stay awake we were drinking DoubleShots by Starbucks and when one of us crushed an empty can, both Black-billed Cuckoos and Yellow-billed Cuckoos began to call around us. At 5am, some of the migrating birds were beginning to fly lower and land in the woods around us including Scarlet Tanagers, Baltimore Orioles and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. At 5:30, we found a singing Worm-eating Warbler and a Bobolink to give us 80 species of birds!

Next we drove into High Point State Park to look for warblers and we did really good finding Blackburnian, Yellow, Black-and-white, Cape May, Bay-breasted, Blackpoll, Magnolia, Canada, Wilson's, Hooded, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Yellow-rumped, Tennessee, Nashville, Pine, Palm, Cerulean and Hooded Warbler as well as Ovenbird, Northern and Louisiana Waterthush, Northern Parula, American Redstart and Common Yellowthroat. We also found 2 Broad-winged Hawk nests and one Cooper's Hawk nest. Heading down to another woody area we found Blue-winged, Golden-winged, Kentucky, Chestnut-sided and Prairie Warbler as well as a Yellow-breasted Chat. With around 150 species by 9am we were very happy and done with the north section of our route.

On the way to the southern part of New Jersey we picked up Greater Black-backed Gull, Iceland Gull, Laughing Gull, Great Cormorant and Peregrine Falcon. Driving around agricultural fields we found both Great Egret and Cattle Egrets, Snow Goose and Glossy Ibis. We next drove to some southern forests for Prothonotary and Yellow-throated Warblers and also picked up Summer Tanager and Carolina Chickadee. By 3:30 (low tide) we were near Cape May scoping through a couple flocks of shorebirds. The best shorebird we found was a Curlew Sandpiper, a bird that normally breeds in Siberia and winters in Australia. We also saw Black Skimmers, Black-bellied Plover, Red Knot, Dunlin and Ruddy Turnstone. Heading to another marsh we finally found Bald Eagle, Northern Harrier and Osprey. Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrows and Seaside Sparrows were called as well as Clapper Rails and Willets.

At about 6pm we heading to the ocean and found Surf, Black and White-winged Scoters (types of sea ducks), Parasitic Jaeger, and Gull-billed Tern. Now it was time to start wrapping up what we didn't have yet. We knew we were somewhere around 200 and were getting excited because we were starting to feel confident that we could place at least somewhere near the top, at least top ten. We drove through some short grass marshes and saw American Oystercatcher, Little Blue Heron, Snowy Egret, Black-crowned Nightheron, and Whimbrel. We then headed to a campground were Red-headed Woodpeckers were nesting. We found the tree with all the cavities but alas, no bird would make a sound. We then headed to pick up a Eurasion Collared-Dove that was hainging out at someones how but failed there too. We then headed to a Yellow-crowned Nightheron rookery to pick that up before trying to pick up the night birds. We managed to find Chuck-will's-Widow and Whippoorwill but missed Common Nighthawk. We then heded to a patch of woods and easily picked up our 5th owl, the Great Horned Owl. Our last stop was a marsh where we attmpted to call Black and Yellow Rails, both small secretive marsh birds. We had been calling for a while when one of the teammates saw something small fly in. He walked to the other side of the van to inspect what it was and it immediately took off flying to the closest spot of cover and began calling. A Black Rail!
It was now close to midnight so we headed back to the finish line where we had to hand in our checklist. One teammate counted it up and got 216, a phenomenal count and so we headed inside to hand it in and make it final. This was good enough to come in third, behind Cornell Lab of Ornithology at 229 and The Lagerhead Shrikes (the local birders and reigning champs) at 218.

Shortly after handing the checklist in though, they called us over and told us we had miscounted! We had counted short and actually had 219! That was enough to put us at 2nd place. We were very excited. The next morning we had a big brunch with all the teams and then we headed home.

Well now I am off to start unpacking all the stuff I brought home from college and then packing my car up again by Tuesday morning for a summer of camping and birding (some people call it a job).

World Series of Birding

2006-05-03T22:16:00.000-04:00

On May 13th, International Migratory Bird Day, I will be participating in the Wold Series of Birding in New Jersey to raise money for the 2nd Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas. My team, the PennsylAvian Monitors, consists of several people who will be working on the atlas over the summer and we are hoping to raise $10,000 for the atlas by seeing 200 birds.

Graduation

2006-05-03T22:13:00.000-04:00

As of 4/23/06 I am a Goshen alum!

Song Sparrow

2006-04-04T08:25:00.000-04:00

Here is a cooperative song sparrow that I got a pretty good shot of. I edited it a little funny so it looks like it has no feet but I feel like the actual detail on the bird is good, or at least better than some of my other shots.

Shoup-Parson Woods II

2006-04-01T14:58:00.000-05:00

Thursday was a bright sunny day so I went down to Shoup-Parson Woods and there were birds everywhere.
From top left, clockwise: Mourning Dove, Downy Woodpecker and Dark-eyed Junco.

Cooper's Hawk, Grebe and Killdeer

2006-03-26T11:49:00.000-05:00

Here are my best shots of a Cooper's Hawk that I took Friday at the Goshen Dam. I took probably 50 shots of him while he sat in the tree. The center picture is one of the Horned Grebe's that is molting into its alternate plumage and the picture on the right is a Killdeer from Kingsbury WMA. Unfortunately the Lesser Yellowlegs were not cooperating and did not remain around for me to digiscope them.

Shoup-Parson Animals

2006-03-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

I went down to the Shoup-Parson Woods between classes to stalk birds and try to get better at taking pictures through the scope and did manage to get a few good ones (about 4 out of 50 shots were worth saving.)

Photos clockwise from top left: Dark-eyed Junco, American Robin, Red-winged Blackbird and Red Squirrel.

A warm winter day

2006-03-11T22:53:00.001-05:00

A perched and flying Song Sparrow as well as some turtles soaking up some of the rare sun in the Indiana winter. It's been getting up to almost 70 degrees and the birds are just loving it.

Toronto

2006-03-03T16:00:00.000-05:00

We had real problems trying to pay for our parking. It was our last ditch attempt to get rid of all our Canadian change and the machine did not like $12 in coins.

On the right is the obligatory picture of the CN Tower as we left downtown and proceeded to get stuck in bad traffic. Only bird of note in Toronto other than thousands of Long-tailed Ducks, was the Merlin and Cooper's Hawk that unsuccessfully chased pigeons for a while.

Snowy Owl

2006-03-02T11:32:00.000-05:00

We were also lucky enough to find a Snowy Owl north of Toronto and here are my attempts at digiscoping.

Pine Marten

2006-03-01T02:31:00.000-05:00

One our last day of hiking in Algonquin we finally found out who was making all the tracks in the snow. The pine marten is fairly common but it is rarely seen. Unfortunately I was too excited to try to take a picture through my binoculars.

Deep Snow

2006-03-01T01:42:00.000-05:00

Here are three pictures to give you idea just how deep 4 feet of snow can be...

Skiing and Snowshoing

2006-03-01T01:22:00.000-05:00

We did an 8 kilometer ski loop our second day in the park and a 13 kilometer loop the 3rd day and ended up with about 12 miles of cross country skiing under our belt. We also rented snowshoes for a day and went tramping about on a six-mile journey past lakes, across lakes and through woods. Amazing how using snowshoes is barely different than just normal walking.

The birds

2006-02-28T01:19:00.000-05:00

The Black-capped Chickadees were so tame they would fly down and land on your hand...

...or your head.

We also had a curious Red-breasted Nuthatch fly down and perch on our hands as well. The Gray Jays liked John, or maybe it was the bread crumbs in his hand.

We also saw Common Redpoll, Pine Grosbeak, Boreal Chickadee, Common Raven, and a Black-backed Woodpecker. We had to wait until the last day to finally find this elusive woodpecker.

Spring Break Accomodations

2006-02-27T01:15:00.000-05:00

At Algonquin Park we stayed at the Wolf Den Backpacker's Hostel which was beautiful.

Downstairs and some of the kitchen in the Wolf Den.

A view of the 2nd floor...

and looking down on the first floor.

Algonquin Park, Ontario - 5 Day Weather Forecast

2006-02-24T13:55:00.000-05:00

For a little bit of fun check out what the weather is gonna be like for us at WeatherOffice. It should be pretty invigorating, notice the upcoming snowfall. I washed the car today and got some windwasher fluid that is supposed to melt ice and snow down to -20 degrees. Its now only 2 hours away from departure time.

Early Ontario plans

2006-02-24T01:54:00.000-05:00

me and john thomas shall be embarking to ontario for a week of quality relaxing time. Once we are in Ontario, we hope to spend a few nights at Wolf Den Bunkhouse n' Cabins near Algonquin Provincial Park. If the weather is lousy we might stay in Toronto for a few days to see culture and possibly stay at Global Village Backpacker's Hostel.

Bird Duets

2006-02-22T13:05:00.000-05:00

There is a great article on dueting birds on Science News Online complete with examples. Pretty fascinating read.

Justine's visit

2006-02-20T20:00:00.000-05:00

Justine spent the weekend out here in Goshen and we managed to do some birding with Horned Larks, a Wilson's Snipe, and 2 early returning Wood Ducks being the highlights. Here we are hiding from the camera. I am doing a better job than she is for sure.