242 Miles by car, 2 miles by foot. Visiting: Bear Swamp, Bethlehem Boat Club, Delaware Water Gap, East Bangor Dam, Gravers Hill, Green Pond, Jacobsburg SP, Kirkridge, Koch Wildlife Refuge, Lake Minsi, Monocacy Nature Center (all sites in Northampton County). Species of note: Snow Goose (L), Surf Scoter (R,L), Virginia Rail (E), Lesser Black-backed Gull (L), Whip-poor-will (E). After suggesting the idea of doing an April Big Day to Billy, we planned a route that was entirely contained in Northampton County. By doing it at the end of April, we hoped to find a combination of lingering winter birds and early arrivals. We heard a Virginia Rail and three species of owls in the early morning, found a slightly disappointing ten species of warblers that included Cerulean and Yellow-throated, watched an adult Bald Eagle at its nest (a first nesting record for the county), and finished up by listening to a persistent Whip-poor-will. It was a fun and successful day considering that we had set a dream goal of 100 species and actually found 104. |