Observers: Ian Gardner
Location: Old Crow Wetland
Observation date: 4/7/11
Time: 7:00-9:30am
Notes: After a successful, yet cursory, excursion to Old Crow Wetland yesterday, I took a more in depth look this morning. I parked the car just after sunrise, but with the continuing cloud cover the birds kept their dawn chorus and activity at peak levels until 9am. Right away I noticed the Blue-winged Teal, Green-Winged Teal, Mallard, Hooded Mergansers, Wood Duck, and Canada Geese in the lower pond. I even had a surprise Horned Grebe that usually inhabits larger bodies of water. Swallows filled the air in dense configurations, even colorfully decorating a White Ash. Tree Swallows held the majority with Barn and Northern Rough-winged filling in. During my walk around the ponds, 7 Wilson's Snipe flew up from their vegetative cover. Sparrows were diverse today with 5 species present (Fox, Savannah, Song, Swamp, and White-throated). On my walk to the "Goldenrod Field," I identified the same juvenile light-morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK flying off past the hotel construction. 7 Eastern Meadowlarks were also singing and flying between the remaining stems. Just as I cleared the peak of the hill, 12 Fish Crows flew overhead. That marks a high count for that corvid at the wetlands. Bufflehead pairs remained in the Walmart-side pond as they have since February. Again, I wandered back down to the lower pond, avoiding mother goose and the flighty Wood Ducks. I would focus on the Quaking Aspen forest today. After reading of Joe Verica's reports of sapsuckers and kinglets, I thought I might have some luck and I was correct. 7 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers in all hopped up the silvery trunks while nearly a dozen Golden-crowned Kinglets and Black-capped Chickadees sorted through the spent aspen catkins, adorning trees and honeysuckle shrubs below. A few Yellow-rumped Warblers joined the flock while an invasion of Dark-eyed Juncos and American Goldfinches filled the canopy for a minute or two. By about 9am, the sun appeared and the chorus quieted (all except for the Brown Thrasher and Eastern Towhees). By the end of the 2+ hours I spent in the wetlands, I identified 50 species, which might be a personal high count. I guess persistence (and afternoon classes) pays off. Enjoy the weather!
Number of species: 50
Species List:
Canada Goose 50
Wood Duck 4
Mallard 2
Blue-winged Teal 6
Green-winged Teal 2
Bufflehead 9
Hooded Merganser 8
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Horned Grebe 1
Great Blue Heron 3
Turkey Vulture 2
ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK 1 Light-morph
American Kestrel 2
Killdeer 1
Wilson's Snipe 7
Ring-billed Gull 1
Mourning Dove 4
Belted Kingfisher 1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 7
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted) 8
Eastern Phoebe 5
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 2
Fish Crow 12
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 2
Tree Swallow 50
Barn Swallow 10
Black-capped Chickadee 7
Tufted Titmouse 5
White-breasted Nuthatch (Eastern) 1
Carolina Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 11
Eastern Bluebird 6
American Robin 20
Brown Thrasher 1
European Starling 4
Yellow-rumped Warbler 4
Eastern Towhee 2
Savannah Sparrow 4
Fox Sparrow (Red) 1
Song Sparrow 18
Swamp Sparrow 8
White-throated Sparrow 2
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) 35
Northern Cardinal 9
Red-winged Blackbird 14
Eastern Meadowlark 7
Common Grackle 3
American Goldfinch 11
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
Ian Gardner,
Juniata College class of 2011
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