Gary and I went up to the fire tower on PA State Game Lands 37 this morning to do some birding. It rained pretty hard on this area last night so all the woods and grassy areas were wet. Luckily there are numerous trails the size of one lane roads throughout this area and we were able to walk in comfort most of the time. Only when we tried to follow a section of the Mid State Trail that led through an area of waist high grasses and chest high shrubs did we finally get very wet.
While admiring the diversity of the food plots mixed with hardwood forest and some browse areas that provided abundant habitat for birds, we nonetheless found plenty to grouse about concerning the lack of accurate maps for the trails we were walking. We had hoped to make a circuit hike out of our trek but discovered that a trail we thought would lead back to the parking lot instead dead ended 0.3 miles short of our goal. We could have bushwhacked through the forest to get to the parking area, but the understory was quite thick and very wet so we had to backtrack.
It’s a lovely place to walk and is very much underutilized during the off season for hunters. I’ll be going back up there again—with a water bottle, a lunch, and my GPS unit and a compass.
Here’s a list of the birds we saw. Many of the counts are WAG (Wild Ass Guesses). There were far more individuals of some species that went untallied, but, as I mentioned, we backtracked for a good portion of our hike and may have seen the same birds and counted them twice. Sue me.
Location: Fire Tower
Observation date: 7/5/07
Notes: Humid, warm, some fog. Followed heavy rain the night before.
Number of species: 23
Turkey Vulture 1
Northern Flicker 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 3
Red-eyed Vireo 3
Blue Jay 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 3
Veery 3
American Robin 4
Gray Catbird 2
Cedar Waxwing 9
Chestnut-sided Warbler 2
Black-throated Blue Warbler 2
Black-and-white Warbler 1
American Redstart 2
Ovenbird 3
Common Yellowthroat 6
Scarlet Tanager 3
Eastern Towhee 4
Chipping Sparrow 6
Song Sparrow 5
Dark-eyed Junco 6
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 1
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
1 comment:
There is a Mid State Trail map available on www.hike-mst.org, the one covering SGL 37 is called "Map 2XX" which currently is a little better at least than the Sportsmen's Rec map or the quads. When the route is finished there should be a better color map. Wild Asaph Outfitters will sell this as part of the set covering the whole state, as well. I'm sure if someone wants to help Liz from WAO mow the grass or clip shrubs she'd be happy to oblige by letting you do that!
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