Hills Creek State Park

Another Saturday morning bird walk at Hills Creek State Park and today's was special. We had a pretty large crowd that included some die-had campers that were staying at the yurts and a newspaper reporter from the Williamsport Sun Gazette. After last night's heavy rains, we were blessed with a clear, crisp morning and lots of birds. Before we even left the parking lot at the park headquarters we had spotted a dozen different species including a Palm Warbler. The prize of the day was a White-winged Crossbill that took to flaunting itself once it was seen. It just stayed around for the photo-op. At nearly the same spot we came across a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker working on a snag, of all things. It wasn't going to get any sap out of that particular tree but maybe it had some insects to disgorge or, perhaps, it was excavating a nest site. On the lake we had a Common Loon, Common Mergansers, Hooded Mergansers, Buffleheads, Wood Duck, American Wigeons, Mallards, Pied-billed Grebes, Lesser Scaups, and, of course, Canada Geese. There was a horde of American Crows going through their mob routine and as we snuck up, an owl flushed from the trees. Unfortunately, no one got a good enough look to identify the species other than to say it was bigger than a Screech Owl and smaller than a Barred Owl so it's not on my list for the day.

Anyway, here's my report as posted to eBird:


Location: Hills Creek State Park
Observation date: 4/11/09
Notes: Crisp, clear morning after heavy rains. Temperature between 38 and 43 degrees. Wind out of the north at around 15 mph with gusts up to 20 mph.
Number of species: 33

Canada Goose X
Wood Duck X
American Wigeon X
Mallard X
Lesser Scaup X
Bufflehead X
Hooded Merganser X
Common Merganser (North American) X
Common Loon X
Pied-billed Grebe X
Great Blue Heron X
Turkey Vulture X
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker X
Downy Woodpecker X
Northern Flicker X
Eastern Phoebe X
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Common Raven X
Tree Swallow X
Barn Swallow X
Black-capped Chickadee X
Tufted Titmouse X
White-breasted Nuthatch X
Brown Creeper X
American Robin X
European Starling X
Palm Warbler X
Song Sparrow X
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) X
Northern Cardinal X
Red-winged Blackbird X
Pine Siskin X

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