Saturday, May 02, 2009

Saturday bird walk at Hills Creek SP

One of the best attended field walks we've every had. We had folks come all the way from down by Williamsport (at least an hour south of us) to participate. I blame the two (2) articles that recently appeared in print. One was in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette and the other was in the Mountain Home (an excellent free publication that come out once a month). In addition to the new folks (interestingly, none of them were camping--again), we had the return of several TAS members from their winter travel to the Salton Sea area of California. The result was a combination of a welcome home gathering and a mixer.

We had a great day for it too. Lots of sunshine (even at the new starting hour for May of 7:30 AM) and temperatures of around 45-55 degrees F.


The results weren't too shabby either. We had plenty of birds (35 species) despite loosing many of the migratory water fowl we had a few weeks ago. Except for the Robins and the Yellow-rumped Warblers, however, the number of individuals seemed small. Perhaps they were in hiding or huddled up somewhere to get warm.
Location: Hills Creek State Park
Observation date: 5/2/09
Notes: Cool, clear morning after a heavy overnight rain. Temp 45-55 degrees F.
Large contingent of Yellow-rump Warblers on the north end of the lake in the hemlocks. Precursors tot he spring warbler migration?
Number of species: 35

Canada Goose X
Wood Duck X
Mallard X
Double-crested Cormorant X
Great Blue Heron X
Osprey X
Spotted Sandpiper X
Mourning Dove X
Barred Owl X
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker X
Pileated Woodpecker X
Eastern Phoebe X
Blue-headed Vireo X
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Common Raven X
Tree Swallow X
Barn Swallow X
Black-capped Chickadee X
Brown Creeper X
House Wren X
American Robin X
European Starling X
Yellow Warbler X
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) X
Black-throated Green Warbler X
Ovenbird X
Chipping Sparrow X
Song Sparrow X
Swamp Sparrow X
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) X
Northern Cardinal X
Red-winged Blackbird X
Brown-headed Cowbird X
Pine Siskin X

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

2 comments:

threecollie said...

You know, despite a lifetime outdoors I have never seen a yellow-bellied sap sucker. Lots of holes out in the orchard, but never an actual bird. Looks like you saw a nice list of species on your walk!

JihadGene said...

That's an impressive list!