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PA Big Day Details |
| Date | May 03, 2014 | ||||||
| Number | 114 | ||||||
| # Seen by All | 114 | ||||||
| Area | County | ||||||
| County | Philadelphia | ||||||
| Time | 3:30 - 2:25 | ||||||
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| MILEAGE 52. Species of Note: Green-winged Teal, Glossy Ibis, Prothonotary Warbler, Bobolink. Highlights: Few other Philadelphia Big Days have been attempted. Ed Fingerhood and Matt Sharp both independently conducted big days in the 80s and 90s, but their totals appear to have been lost. From what we can gather those attempts set their sights on hitting 100 species and either failed or barely achieved that total. It's our belief that this total of 114 species is the highest species total ever recorded in a 24-hour period in Philadelphia County. We began in northwest Philadelphia at 330am, working the areas around and along the Wissahickon. We checked the impoundment on Port Royal Ave in Roxborough hoping that there might be a rallid of some sort in there but heard only a few other species, none noteworthy. We then parked on Bell's Mill Road and walked up into Houston Meadow. We found both Great Horned Owl and Eastern Screech-Owl calling there, and several Swainson's Thrush flight calls were heard as they migrated high over head in the night. The highlight here though was when we heard a sort of squeaky-scratchy sound, and Todd (to my surprise) declared, "Flying Squirrel"! He'd identified it by vocalization, and though I was somewhat skeptical, he soon had it spotlighted it, to remove all doubt. We watched it scurry around a bit, ascending the tree it was in, before sailing off into the darkness. While common in many parts of the Northeast, neither of us had ever seen one so well before. As dawn broke we took in the gathering light at Morris Arboretum, before descending into Valley Green, where soon we'd located our major target, Louisiana Waterthrush. Carpenter's Woods was abuzz. We stepped out of the car and quickly found Hooded Warbler and followed that up with nice sighthing of Blue-winged, Chestnut-sided, Blackburnian, Worm-eating Warbler and left there with a total of about 17 species of warblers. We shot on down to Heinz/Tinicum and walked the whole 3.3mi loop and picked up a bunch of stuff, including Wild Turkey (only spot where this species is easily found in Phila), Least Flycatcher, Blue-headed Vireo, Prothonotary Warbler, American Coot, Green-winged Teal, Rusty Blackbirds, and more. We left Heinz at about 10am, and species were few and far between after that. We hit the Philadelphia Navy Yard which hold the last Ring-necked Pheasant(s) in the city, but we missed that despite GLA having heard it several times this spring there. We also made stops at FDR Park and the DE River Trail at Reed Street (a.k.a. "behind Wal-Mart") and picked up a few things there, before we made our way up to Pennypack on the Delaware (POD). Number 114 was a Least Sandpiper at POD, which we found in the company of the Godfather of Philadelphia Birding, the hardest working man in Philly Birding, Frank Windfelder- and after that we knocked off. It was afterall Todd's 40th birthday and we both needed some rest if we were to make a good showing at that night's festivities. These included copious amounts of booze, and a little street parkour. Significant misses included Eastern Meadowlark and Peregrine Falcon. Horned Larks have been present at PHL too. Black Duck and Red-shouldered Hawk are difficult to find at this season. A follow-up attempt on May 17, netted 111 species. I'll plan to write that up separately later on. Significant on that attempt was an improved route which had us at Tinicum in the pre-dawn/dawn followed by a full morning in the NW Philly. We obtained permission to enter Tinicum in darkness which netted us Virginia Rail, Sora, Least Bittern, and a flyover Semipalmated Plover. Generally however there were fewer migrants around. We enjoyed a night-list (midnight-5am) of 19 species on this day. | |||||||