Sweet YardBird of Youth

We've had a first-year female Cape May Warbler hanging around the pines in the backyard for the last three days:

If it looks like I'm right there next to the bird, it's because I was. She was surprisingly tolerant, flitting right at eye level and over my head in the low branches of the big pine and the yew shrubbery under it (A SHRUBBERY! hee hee) as I photographed her.

Pretty cool. Baby G came over and saw it yesterday and tonight -- a lifer for her!

Not a bad yard bird!

Fall foliage, early edition -- UPDATED with IDs

No, we don't have too many fall leaves turning yet, but we do have a lot of nice fall flowers blooming. Gretchen, her gf, and AB and I went camping at Greenwood Furnace (they have a great pair of very isolated walk-up sites that we love) and got some great flower and mushroom photos. The best bird of the trip was a beautiful Ovenbird just above eye-level who gave us quite a show, including raised crest just like Crossley shows; unfortunately, he dashed out of sight before either of us could snap a photo. Flowers are infinitely easier to capture!

Meadow Closed Gentian

Calico Aster

the seed pods from Doll's Eyes, which are kinda creepy


some interesting orange-topped mushrooms

Magenta Coral mushroom?

a shimmery purple mushroom--it was like a cartoon mushroom from Barbie land

couldn't ID this one -- any ideas?

Is this a Striped Maple Tree? Here are the leaves:

Saw some nice moths; at least I think the second one is a moth:
there's nothing for scale, but he was at least two inches from tip to wing-end! He's a beauty! Perhaps some kind of underwing?

I don't know if this is some sort of clearwing moth or some gigantic mosquito hawk -- again, with nothing to show scale, it's hard to see that he's about 1-1/2 inches long with a 2-inch+ wingspan. Per Wren, my friend from Cape May, it's a Giant Eastern Crane Fly, Pedicia albivitta, and quite a beautiful little specimen. Harmless, per What's That Bug?

And some soon-to-be moths!
the closest I can come on this guy is a Banded Tussock Moth caterpillar
possible Hickory Tussock Moth caterpillar

I leave you with this scary-big bee-wasp-possible-clearwing-moth thing:He was at least 1-1/2 inches long! I have gone through all the images of clearwings on the Bug Guide site, but I can't find one with this pattern of body -- many are close, but not exact matches. And if he's a bee or wasp... holy moly. His wings were constantly flapping, and he was very scary to someone who's allergic to bee and wasp stings -- like me. There's some discussion in the comments as to whether it's a Cicada Killer or a European Hornet -- not really sure. Either way, it's creepy and scary -- but it didn't display any aggressive behaviors, at least.

Lifer alert!

Yesterday, Gretchen, her gf, and I went to the flooded farm fields on Nixon Rd between here and Pine Grove Mills -- where I got my lifer Vesper Sparrow -- in search of a rumored American Golden-Plover. Also seen there earlier in the day were a Baird's Sandpiper and a White-rumped Sandpiper. We only saw the beautiful American Golden-Plover (the ABA checklist hyphenates it for some reason, so who am I to argue?), though it was dusk and the fog was rolling in -- so no photos.

I was hoping to see it in better light today, but the clouds and rain blew out last night and no one reported seeing them after early this morning. Hmph. At least I saw the Golden, but I sure wanted to see the White-rumped. (I saw a Baird's last year at Bald Eagle State Park, though it would've been neat to see the two quite similar birds side by side, like they appear in the oh-so-awesome Crossley ID Guide, about which -- although everyone knows how awesome it is by now -- I feel the need to shout how awesome it is pretty much every day.

Migrant madness--UPDATED!

Gretchen and I went to Scotia Barrens IBA between 1 and 3pm yesterday afternoon -- an odd time, and not normally a good time, but it turned out to be really good. We saw sooooo many warblers and flycatchers that we were overwhelmed, but we did our best to ID and even got some good snapshots.

We started off at the pond; the weather had cleared earlier so we didn't see much waterfowl. Still, look at this Pied-billed Grebe:

Nice catch!

We then went down the road and saw several little flocks of migrating warblers, some still in breeding plumage but most wearing their "confusing fall warbler" outfits.

Black-throated Green Warbler, always abundant at Scotia

one of the many Magnolia Warblers we saw

Gretchen got this great photo of my favorite warbler the Blackburnian:I would've written this off as a BTGreen--but look at the face. Crossley has a photo of a Blackburnian that looks just like this.

Our complete list, which contains three lifers (in bold) but I'm hesitant to count two of them. I feel good about the YBFL because I got good looks at it. However, the Philly Vireo and Acadian Flycatcher were ID'd solely by voice and not seen--I'll note this on my spreadsheet and in my margin to the right:

Pied-billed Grebe 2
Turkey Vulture 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Northern Flicker 1
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 1
Acadian Flycatcher 1
Philadelphia Vireo 1
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 2
Black-capped Chickadee 6
White-breasted Nuthatch 4
American Robin 1
Gray Catbird 6
Cedar Waxwing 32
Ovenbird 1
Northern Waterthrush 1
American Redstart 3
Magnolia Warbler 7
Bay-breasted Warbler 1
Blackburnian Warbler 1
Black-throated Green Warbler 3
American Goldfinch 1
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2 (http://ebird.org)

That puts me at 310 -- 308 plus two heard-onlys. Hmph.

We also saw some good bugs and other creepy-crawlies:

some sort of damselfly--per John, a kind of spreadwing

is this the nymph stage of something, or a new kind of stinkbug?
Per John, it's probably the nymph stage of an actual stinkbug!

look at this beauty! I can't find this one anywhere in my moth book or online. Any help?
Per John, it might well be a Pyrrhia exprimens, or Purple-lined Sallow larva.
And it certainly does look like the photo on this web site.

And by the way, John mentioned a book that's sure to go onto my wish list: Caterpillars of Eastern North America by David Wagner. I loves the cats! Hello, Christmas present!

Red Darner? Nope -- probably a meadowhawk, per John. I thought perhaps a Ruby Meadowhawk, but they have black spots on the tips of the wings. Then I thought Red-tailed Pennant (a skimmer) but they aren't up here. So -- I just don't know enough! And if John couldn't give me an ID, then I might as well give up!

Thanks to John for all his ID help!

Of course I relieved my Warbler Neck issues with some flower-gazing:

this looks most like a Giant Sunflower, only it's not that giant and there are fewer petals on it. Probably a garden escapee.

Nodding Ladies' Tresses -- life flower!

my old favorite Butter and Eggs

This reminds me of Chamomile; can't find it in my flower guides. Any ideas?

We went back to Scotia this morning with a big group, one of the many guided fall walks scheduled for this month. I was thinking we'd see everything we saw yesterday and more, and all the big-time birders would ID everything we couldn't get yesterday. No such luck -- it was really dead out there; nothing on the pond, a random Blackpoll Warbler, a bunch of chickadees and Cedar Waxwings. We had a brief moment of excitement when we saw a tiny group of three BTGreens and an American Redstart. Pretty disappointing.

But at least we went out for breakfast afterwards, and I got some outdoor time before the rain came (again). It's been raining almost non-stop for the last week, remnants of TS Lee. There's severe flooding in several areas of the state, but we got lucky here and only had minor flooding one morning. The worst of it went south and east of us. It cleared up and the humidity blew out yesterday just in time for us to have a wonderful day outside. Today? Not so much.

More birds and flowers

My bff Gretchen and I went birding last Saturday and, while we didn't see anything too unusual, we did see some nice places and beautiful wildflowers and butterflies.

Our first birds of the trip were some Wild Turkeys:Baby G told me that in the fall, the toms all hang out together and the hens hang out in their own groups, and they don't intermingle again until the mating season starts up. Interesting! There were three beautiful toms in this group, and nary a female in sight.

We started our birding at Bald Eagle State Park, where we saw quite an impressive array of birds at several hotspots along the lake. Highlights were several Osprey, a young Bald Eagle, a Cliff Swallow, a Green Heron that flew right past us at eye level and maybe 20 feet away, a beautiful Black-and-white Warbler, and huge flocks of Cedar Waxwings. Some photos:

A hanging nest incorporating some discarded fishing line

a very shy Cliff Swallow who refused to let us see much more than this

not one of the greatest photos of the Black-and-white Warbler

Red-eyed Vireo tocks! Every time I got a great look at him through the bins,
I would lift my camera and he'd hide. Grrrr.

We also went to Julian Wetlands and, a first for me, the new Governor Tom Ridge Wetlands Preserve, named after the former governor of PA. I had no idea he was any kind of environmentalist, but whatever. We saw some great butterflies in both spots, but not a lot of birds:

We saw lots of these--is this a male Eastern Black Swallowtail?

one of my favorite signs of fall, the New England Aster



These two photos are from the same plant. It's a new flower for me, but I can't find it in my books. Any ideas? They almost look like different flowers, but I think they were from the same plant.

a very worn Monarch on some New York Ironweed

a beautiful female (judging from the larger blue smudges)
Eastern Black Swallowtail on some New York Ironweed

this looks like a White Wood Aster, judging from the width of the leaves,
the sparse petals, and the shaggy center

I can't find this flower in any of my books. What the heck is it? There was TONS of it out there.

a Cardinal Flower -- what a beauty!

there were tons of mushrooms, which made Gretchen happy
as mycology is her newest interest. That flap under the cap is called a "veil."

look at this beautiful little spot, tucked into the woods behind the Tom Ridge wetlands

a shroom, just emerging

a grown-up version of the same kind of shroom

Gretch told me about the difficulty of mushroom ID; it's not about color or shape or appearance so much as it's the smell (don't they all smell alike?), the color of the spores (you make a "spore-print" by doing something or other--I kinda forgot what--with the cap to make it release spores onto a piece of paper), what kinds of trees the mushroom is growing near, and a bunch of qualities you can only see by tearing the mushroom apart.

I'm sure glad bird ID isn't so... um... physical.

Some serious shorebird migration

We've had quite the display of migrating shorebirds lately, especially at Colyer Lake near State College. On Saturday, we had a big rainstorm and there were literally hundreds of peeps!

Unfortunately, I only had the chance to go and peer through the binocs of others -- I was working and had left my gear at home. Still, I got to see quite a good number of species and in rather large numbers.

Here is the list:
Canada Goose 4
Mallard 6
Great Blue Heron 1
Semipalmated Plover 8
Killdeer 6
American Avocet 1
Spotted Sandpiper 2
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 60
Semipalmated Sandpiper 4
Least Sandpiper 2
Pectoral Sandpiper 18
Short-billed Dowitcher 24
Barn Swallow 3
Song Sparrow 2

At one point, a flock of over 100 shorebirds -- mostly the SBDOs -- wheeled overhead and landed. For this area, that many shorebirds was practically a record-setting fallout. Certainly, the SBDOs and the avocet are considered rarities here, which is why I took the detour from work. It was well worth it; the SBDO was lifebird number 300 for me, and I'd seen an American Avocet only once before, in Texas, and it wasn't in breeding plumage. This one was; one of my birding heroes Joe Verica took a photo:

Photo by Joe Verica

Notice all the birds! Pretty awesome. Needless to say, I did NOT ID all those peeps. I confess that Joe shared his eBird list with me and I just edited out the birds I knew I didn't see.

Sadly, the rain cleared up that night and by morning, the birds were gone.

Life states, life birds

For the first time ever, I visited Wisconsin and Minnesota. AB and I went to WI first, to visit her sister, brother-in-law, and their new baby! No pics on the interwebs allowed, but let me tell you -- she's a cutie!

We then drove to Minnesota for a wedding during a ridiculously severe heat wave. We sat under a tent and sweated for four hours; it was a happy occasion, but I think I sweated off about 10 lbs. (I'm sure it all came back.)

Once in Wisconsin, I had my eyes peeled for Sandhill Cranes; I'd seen that we'd be in their breeding range and that there were lots of reports of them in eBird. We hit two different spots listed as "hot spots" around Beloit, WI, but we didn't see any cranes. I was also hoping to see a Dickcissel to get a better photo for my lifebird photo file, but again -- nothing.

On the road between WI and MN, however, we struck gold:Terrible photos, and we only got them after having to drive a ways, exit, turn around, go back a few miles, and then hope they were still in the field. AB spotted these; I was busy waving at cows. AB's patience rocks.

A few days later, on the way home, we saw these cranes in Ohio; after another 30-minute turnaround, I was able to get a decent photo:Sweet! Lifebird #307 and a good photo! Thanks, AB!

While we were in Beloit, I heard the constant twittering and buzzing of dozens of House Wrens:I'd never seen or heard so many in one spot! They were like HOSPs in this neighborhood--everywhere.