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PA Big Day Details |
| Date | Nov 08, 2004 | ||||||
| Number | 74 | ||||||
| # Seen by All | 74 | ||||||
| Area | State | ||||||
| Time | 0515 to 1830 | ||||||
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| 160 Miles by car, 2 miles by foot. Visiting: Swatara State Park, Middle Creek WMA, Lancaster County farmlands, Coatesville Reservoir, Chambers Lake, Wedgewood Pond. Species of note: Rusty Blackbird (R), American Kestrel (M), Northern Harrier (M). Ted and I have to plan well in advance to be able to work a Big Day into our busy family schedules. So we were pleasantly surprised that our chosen day in November turned out to be the most beautiful Saturday of the month. The first birds for the day were a pair of dueting Great Horned Owls at our (proposed) Barred Owl stop. Since any owl is a nice find, we didn’t complain about the exchange. After that we drove to our new favorite birding locale, Swatara SP, which provided a frosty and beautiful, but disturbingly quiet sunrise. However, as the sun began to melt the frost, it seemed to thaw out the birds as well, and the park quickly came to life. The temperature climbed about thirty degrees in the 2.5 hours we were there. Swatara produced nearly forty species for us. Highlights at the park were American Woodcock, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, several Fox Sparrows, and a group of seven Rusty Blackbirds. After that we made our way to Middle Creek WMA, where we were dismayed to find out that we had forgotten that most of the refuge was off-limits for the season due to hunting closures. We made the best of it by birding a few of the accessible ponds and the main lake. Highlights from Middle Creek included Dunlin, Bald Eagle, and a Rough-legged Hawk. From Middle Creek we proceeded to wend our way through Lancaster and Chester counties back toward Ted’s home in the Coatesville area. We stopped at farm fields near New Holland to pick up Horned Lark and American Pipit. We also were fortunate to find a Black Vulture after much searching on our drive through Lancaster County. We had seen many Red-tailed Hawks all day, but after miles and miles of farm roads in Lancaster and Chester counties we were unable to find a single Northern Harriers or American Kestrel. Clearly these were the biggest misses of the day. We hoped to round out our afternoon by picking up waterfowl on Chester County ponds and lakes. We were fairly successfully in locating species we knew to be around; American Coot, Ruddy Duck, Pied-billed Grebe, Greater Yellowlegs, American Pintail, Gadwall, Bufflehead, Ring-necked Duck, and Greater Scaup were all added to the list by visiting Kurtz’s Fish Ponds, Wedgewood Pond, and Coatesville Reservoir, and Chambers Lake. Greater Yellowlegs and Sharp-shinned Hawk were unexpected bonus birds. Altogether it was a fairly good day for birding in Pennsylvania. The highlight of the day was simply savoring the 60-degree temperatures and sunshine, and enjoying some close up looks at Fox Sparrows and Rusty Blackbirds. 74 species in November is by no means unbeatable, but we know it will require both good weather and some effort for us to match this day. | |||||||