Wednesday Birding around Wellsboro, PA

  

I took advantage of a relatively nice day on Wednesday (I won't call it a spring day as it was still a bit chilly for April 18th) to do some birding over around Wellsboro. I visited Hills Creek State Park, Darling Run on Pine Creek and the blind at The Muck off route 287. I only spent about an hour at each yet got to see some real nice birds. HCSP afforded some close up views of Horned Grebes and Common Loons as well as a Pine Warbler and Sharp-shinned Hawk. Being quite overcast, the lighting wasn't the best.

Horned Grebe

Common Loon

Pine Warbler

Sharp-shinned Hawk

The are of Darling Run (from the parking lot up to Pine Creek's confluence with Marsh Creek) allowed plenty of sightings of Ruby-Crowned Kinglets but those little buggers were way to quick for me to get a picture. The Belted Kingfisher always had its head turned the wrong way! And the Common Mergansers were j-u-s-t too far for a good shot.

The Muck provided pretty good views of Bufflehead and Green-winged Teal, but the use of autofocus with my camera gave me mixed success with other birds that hid behind and among the cattails. I had a Harrier fly past, too.

Bufflehead, four males and one female (on the left)

Green-winged Teal

I tried to get a picture of the Swamp Sparrow right outside the blind, but the camera kept focusing on the reeds. Then the bird took flight just as I pushed the button compounding the problem.

Swamp Sparrow

 Even a relatively cooperative Red-winged Blackbird sitting on a nesting box got messed up by the reeds.

Red-wing behind the reeds.

 I had to be careful to shoot between the reeds with a point focus setting.

Red-winged Blackbird.

I might have to go back to using my (heavy) Sony Alpha with the 600mm lens and manual focus.

White-faced Hornet

I mentioned in a previous post how much I hate Yellow Jackets. Those wasps are just a pain in the a$$...and anywhere else they may sting you. Plus the rotters are usually found nesting at ground level where you might easily stumble upon them.

I had one nest of Yellow Jackets removed for me by (I assume) a bear. I also removed one from between the awnings of the trailer. So imagine my dismay/surprise to find a huge nest built on the antenna of the trailer.

I initially thought it was another Yellow Jacket structure but realized it was too large and so were the critters flying about it. I watched for days from the deck and finally got a good look at a few as they flew paste me. They weren't Yellow Jackets. They were White-faced Hornets!

White-faced Hornet

I thought to wait until things got below freezing before I tackled them, but grew impatient. I opted to hit them with two cans of Spectricide--the stuff with a 27-foot range--when I had a calm evening. That happened on Friday evening. I took a position a safe distance away and hit 'em hard! I soaked the one side of the nest with spray after the sun set.

I stood on the right side of the truck and was able to reach the center of the trailer roof. (The white piece to the left of the air conditioner.)

This morning, the deck of the house had a couple of dead hornets laying about and the roof of the trailer had even more. I watched for an hour or more and saw no hornets flying in or out of the nest. Hooking up a nozzle to the garden hose that would allow me to reach with a narrow, powerful stream of water, I spent half an hour spraying the nest. Damn thing is tough! It's still holding on to the antenna post. I managed to take half of the nest out and exposed larvae inside. The entire time I saw only two hornets fly into the area. They didn't stay.

Hitting the nest with a stream of water exposed the interior but didn't knock the entire thing off the antenna.

Exposed larvae of the White-faced Hornets.

I'll hit the exposed nest with more spray later this evening. Then I may be able to use a ladder to get closer and on a different angle to attempt to knock the rest of the nest to the ground.

Saturday Birding and Celebrating

Yesterday (August 19, 2017) marked Theresa and my 45th Wedding Anniversary. As it so happens, she was in North Carolina for an EGA Seminar and I was home with the cats. (Sometimes things get reversed and I'm out fishing but occasionally, we are both in the same place.)

I decided to celebrate with some birding. (Okay, so it was the Tiadaghton Audubon Society's annual picnic. Still counts.)

Oldest Audubon Society in PA!

Before the picnic, I stopped at a couple of spots to do some birding. Things were less than active and I only spotted a few species at each of the stops. I did have a frustrating time with a passel of small birds flitting about in the leaves of one tree by the Ive's Run boat launch. They would never stay still long enough to bee identified, let alone photographed. I did hear some Black-capped Chickadees in the crowd, but there was more than that.

Anyway, I did manage to get some critters to pose for me.

Red-tailed Hawk at the Tioga-Hammond Connector overlook.

Northern Flicker at the Tioga-Hammond Connector overlook.

Pair of Ospreys on the pole along road up to the Tioga-Hammond Connector overlook.

Eastern Phoebe on the Railroad Grade Trail, Ive's Run.

Muskrat in pond along the Railroad Grade Trail, Ive's Run

Painted Turtle in pond along the Railroad Grade Trail, Ive's Run

Visit to Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge

I haven't visited Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in a number of years and since we sold the property up in the Adirondacks, I haven't even driven past it in over two years. Yesterday that changed.

With three other members of the Tiadaghton Audubon Society, I ventured north early Wednesday morning to view and photograph birds at Montezuma. Fresh from all the excitement created by the visitation of a rare White-winged Tern in our own back yard, this would be a much more relaxing outing. Robin and Sean, Gary and I would spend over five hours walking and driving around the refuge's main pools, the Seneca Canal and surrounding areas. We'd run into a couple of folks who had made their way to the WW Tern sighting, too.

When the day was done, I had over 200 photos to go through (many duplicates with just slight changes in camera settings) and over 35 species on my check list. My list of species doesn't do justice to the sheer numbers of individual birds we saw. There had to be hundreds of herons, egrets and coots for example. And migration hasn't even begun! Nothing spectacular pops up on the list, but we all had a very nice day spent with good company doing somethings we all love doing.

First the list:
Montezuma NWR--Wildlife Drive, Seneca, New York, US
Aug 16, 2017 8:15 AM - 1:45 PM
Protocol: Traveling
6.0 mile(s)
Comments:     Walked the trail around the visitors' center then drove the road through the refuge and ended over on East Road past May's Pond.
37 species

Canada Goose
Trumpeter Swan
Wood Duck
Mallard
American Black Duck
Pied-billed Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
American Bittern
Great Blue Heron
Green Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs 
Ring-billed Gull 
Caspian Tern
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Kingbird
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Gray Catbird
Cedar Waxwing
Common Yellowthroat
Yellow Warbler
Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
American Goldfinch

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S38677291

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Now the photos--well, some of them anyway:

Killdeer

Osprey (There were many, many young osprey as well as juvenile Bald Eagles about. Never did see and adult Eagle, however.)

Green Heron. We saw many of these come flying into the channels and reeds Only a couple allowed us a peek at them.

American Coot. There were rafts and rafts of coots foraging on the algae in the ponds and/or just paddling about..

Pied-billed Grebe. Dozens of both adult and immature grebes were fishing in the ponds.

Common Gallinule.  There were many of these in the narrow channels between reeds. And a surprising number of little black, puffball/lollipop babies were also present.

Wood Duck. Many hens were seen. This one played coy behind some reeds.

Trumpeter Swan. A dozen or so trumpeters were spotted in different spots. This one was snoozing in a shallow pond and woke up only long enough to show its black bill and to do a little stretching.

Greater Yellowlegs. Scores of shorebirds were to be seen. Few could be IDed without debate. LOL!

Lesser Yellowlegs. I think.

Common Egret. Hundreds were to be seen hunkered down in the pond next to the NYS Thruway and at the end of East Road. HUNDREDS

Great Blue Heron. Again, hundreds were present virtually everywhere, but especially at the end of East Road.

American Bittern. How Sean spotted this guy is a mystery.

Surprise! Suprise! Surprise!

Lots of interesting stuff happening around here this week.

First was a surprise visit from a Eurasian species of bird: a White-winged Tern. Seldom seen in North America this little guy showed up in a small lake over near Wellsboro on Thursday morning. It was identified by members of the Tiadaghton Audubon Society and was confirmed by some folks from Cornell. It helped that the person, Rich Hanlon, reporting it to Cornell had pictures--and is the minister of the Wellsboro Methodist Church. The two folks with him are among the top birders in Tioga County according to eBird.

As one might expect from the appearance of such a rarity, folks are flocking in from all over to get a glimpse of this super cooperative bird. This morning there was one guy who had flown from Texas to Philadelphia and rented a car to drive out here just to see the bird. There have been folks from Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey and New York (Long Island and West Point area so they weren't just hopping over the state line). Even folks from PA drove from Pittsburgh and Philly area just to add this bird to their life lists. TV news crews and the local newspaper showed up and did  interviews with Rich Hanlon and some of the birders.

I've been over to look at the birds and to meet and talk to some of the visitors  a couple of times--Friday afternoon and again this morning. I might go back tomorrow morning to see if it's still here. Rich Hanlon will, of course, be occupied elsewhere. ;-)

White-winged Tern at Nessmuk Lake, 2017_08_11

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My second surprise was finding another yellow jackets' nest. Remember the nest I said was under the cover to the septic tank? I thought I might have to wait until we had some cold weather to take care of that nest, but when I got back from Quebec, I found something--probably a bear--had shoved the cover aside enough to reach in and rip out the wasps' nest. The paper from the nest was torn apart and there was precious little left. I watched the area just in case and saw only one or two bees flying around. Nothing special--or threatening. Today I went out to cut the grass and even pushed the cover back into place without raising any wasps.

HOWEVER, as I was cutting the grass I happened to glance up at the awning of our travel trailer. A small stain on the white of the one awning drew my attention and that's when I saw it--and them.

The damn wasps have built a paper nest between the two awnings not far from the door of the trailer. It's above the white awning for the kitchen bump out and below the black awning that would create a shaded patio.

Wasp nest between the awnings

One of the b*st*rds exiting the nest.

*Sigh* I guess I'll have to get out there with some spray after dark when every bee should be home. I'll soak it good with Spectricide from a safe distance and hope for the best. Then, when the spray has worked overnight, I'll hit it again. THEN I'll knock that bad boy down using the garden hose.

******

Third: While cutting the lawn, I noticed the sky was darkening a bit but thought little of it--until I ran out of gas when I was about 5/6ths done (just the area behind the house to do--maybe 10' x 40'). That's when I heard the rumble of thunder off in the distance. There wasn't much of a breeze and I could barely make out any movement in the clouds overhead, still, I figured, I had better hurry up and finish! And so I refueled the mower and proceeded to double-time my efforts.

Just as I finished and was putting the mower into the shed, the first drops fell. They were soon followed by more and more and even more. As I sat and watched on the covered porch, the sky opened up and torrents of rain fell straight down while thunder pealed about two mile away. (See the lightening flash. Count "one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two...." If you get to one-thousand-five and then hear the thunder, the storm is about one mile away.)

This lasted just about 30 minutes and then, suddenly, it stopped as if someone had turned off the faucet. And the sun came out. I'm sure someone, somewhere got to see a beautiful rainbow. Unfortunately, it wasn't me. Too many trees--and a mountain--in the way.

******

Four: Terry has gone south for the week. She'll be attending an EGA Seminar down in Ashville, North Carolina, right after she goes and visits her cousin in Columbia, South Carolina. So it's just me and the cats (four indoors and four outdoors) for the week.

******

That is all. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and don't forget to look skyward tonight for the Perseid Meteor Shower. It's supposed to be a good one and the moon won't rise until after 11 PM.

Arches National Park

After a brief respite to refuel and refresh, Terry and I headed back out this afternoon to visit Arches National Park.

Again, we did as little walking as possible but still got suckered in to doing some as the view was "just a short distance around the bend." They didn't mention the very loose, dry sand that made walking very difficult. Or the three--very steep--flights of stone steps. *sigh* And it reached 100 degrees to top it off.

Still, it was worth it.

Like Canyonlands, there are massive rock formations in Arches. 

Three Gossips

Eroded butte

Delicate Arch.

Broken Arch

Skyline Arch

Skyline Arch from a little closer.

The Windows Arches (North and South)

South Window with small Turret Window just to the right.

Balancing Rock. Don't be fooled, that rock on the top on the left is 45+ feet from top to bottom.

A panorama I stitched together to show the Marching Elephants. (hope it works!)

We visited every overlook and read every explanation they had out there. Took lots of pictures and gathered some wonderful memories. Then we returned to the Hampton Inn, cleaned up and went out to dinner.

Tomorrow morning we start heading east again. First stop will be Sidney, NE and the Cabela's complex just off I-80.

Canyonlands National Park

Saturday morning was spent in the Island In the Sky section of Canyonlands National Park.

We traveled the short distance from Moab to the Route 313 entrance to the park and then spent the better part of the morning going from one view point to another. We did do a little walking early on, but both Terry and I agreed that as the day got hotter and our knees got sorer, we would do as little as possible.

Even so, we managed to get some great views of the immense canyon structure, stone buttes and mesas and just about everything we could from the comfort of a paved road and a Tundra's cushioned (and air conditioned) seat. (The temperature would reach over 100 degrees later in the afternoon while we were at Arches NP.)

If you're not going "Wow!" before you get to the entrance to the park, you are not paying attention.

At the turnoff for Route 313 from US 191.

Buttes just inside the park proper.

Upheaved dome of salt. Caused either by a salt dome swelling and popping the rocks above or a meteor impact. Their leaning toward the meteor. The color doesn't do it justice. The jagged rocks are actually a bright turquoise.

Butte.

View of the Green River from the Green River Overlook.

Dosen't this belong in Yosemite? Actually, no. This is formed from sandstone. Half Dome in Yosemite is granite.

Terry at the Grandview Overlook.

View of some canyons from the Grandview Overlook.

 We spent the morning exploring and then returned to Moab to have lunch. In the afternoon, we headed to Arches National Park.