Thursday Birding

Things are getting back to normal (whatever that is) around the Aerie. Terry is doing her stitching stuff (two meetings in three days), I’ve done a few chores around the place (grass, even poor, clover filled grass, can grow like crazy when it’s cool and showery) and we’ve been out birding already.

Yesterday, Gary wanted help with one of his bird blocks for the PA Bird Atlas so we had six pairs of eyes on the ground for a couple of hours to see if we could boost the number of species in the block. We started at Hills Creek State Park and drove northwest out of the park stopping briefly at Tauscher Pond before parking at the end of a gated road belonging to the town of Mansfield. They bought up 900 acres at the headwaters of Lamb’s Creek, moved Shaw Road away from the stream and opened the property for hunters, hikers and birdwatchers with very little notice. It’s accessible from the new Shaw Road at both ends of the closed off road and offers quite a variety of habitats from an old sand and gravel quarry (probably used in constructing the new Shaw Road), to open fields, mixed hardwoods, planted spruce , and mixed conifers. In addition to the old Shaw Road which we walked from end to end, there is a second road that heads across the creek and up the slope we did not explore.

The morning was overcast and threatened rain any moment. It had rained during the night and the grasses and ground were soaking wet. We lucked out, however, in that the showers held off until we were done for the day. I started counting birds from the time we got to the Hills Creek Parking lot at around 7 AM and stopped when Terry and I drove out of Hills Creek Park at 10:30 AM. During that time we recorded 40 different species of birds. Only about 30 of these were within the boundary of Gary’s block but several of those were important new species he hadn’t recorded or confirmation of breeding within the block (based upon behavior, carrying food, etc.).
Here’s the report I filed with eBird:


Location: Mansfield Watershed
Observation date: 6/26/08
Notes: We started at the Hills Creek St Pk office and drove to Tauscher Pond and then on to the old Shaw Rd as it goes through the Mansfield Watershed. The watershed has a variety of fields, mixed hardwoods, pines, spruce and fir trees.

An cool, overcast and threatening morning after some rains overnight. Birds weren't as active as they would be if it were sunny. Showers returned just as we ended the walk.
Number of species: 40

Wood Duck X
Mallard X
Great Blue Heron X
Green Heron X
Mourning Dove X
Ruby-throated Hummingbird X
Blue-headed Vireo X
Red-eyed Vireo X
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Tree Swallow X
Black-capped Chickadee X
Red-breasted Nuthatch X
White-breasted Nuthatch X
Brown Creeper X
House Wren X
Veery X
Wood Thrush X
American Robin X
Gray Catbird X
European Starling X
Cedar Waxwing X
Yellow Warbler X
Chestnut-sided Warbler X
Magnolia Warbler X
Black-throated Green Warbler X
Black-and-white Warbler X
Ovenbird X
Common Yellowthroat X
Scarlet Tanager X
Eastern Towhee X
Chipping Sparrow X
Song Sparrow X
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) X
Northern Cardinal X
Rose-breasted Grosbeak X
Indigo Bunting X
Red-winged Blackbird X
Common Grackle X
American Goldfinch X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)