The Nemesis Bird

You are browsing the archives of 2008 May.

I spent an afternoon on the Conejohela Flats on the Susquehanna River yesterday. The water behind the dam was amazingly low, resulting in acres of mud. This benefited the birds by giving them more foraging habitat but made it a bit more difficult to get close looks at the birds. Least Sandpipers and Dunlin outnumbered [...]

Currently there is a rash of sightings of phalaropes in Pennsylvania. I know of at least 8 different birds that have been reported in the last two weeks.
5/9- a Wilson’s Phalarope reported at the Polk Wetlands in Venango County
5/10-12- female Wilson’s Phalarope on Gremar Rd., Lower Nazareth Twp., Northampton County
5/12- Red-necked Phalarope at Lake Nockamixon, [...]

Today I am heading off to training for my third season as a field biologist for the 2nd Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Altas. I will be doing point counts across the state as part of an effort to determine densities of breeding birds in PA.
On the drive out, I will be stopping at some flooded fields [...]

While the Wood Sandpiper is considered accidental, i.e. very rare, in the lower 48, it has been recorded breeding in the Outer Aleutians. It is even rarer on the east coast.

Wood Sandpiper- Delaware, 5/9/08
A Wood Sandpiper showed up in Rye, New York in early winter 1990. The sighting was covered in the New York Times. [...]

Friday afternoon I posted that I was off to chase the Wood Sandpiper being seen in Delaware. I got picked up at my house around 11am and by about 1:30pm we were driving down Broadkill Road, looking for a swarm of cars. When we pulled in, people seemed to be milling around, not really looking [...]

In just a couple minutes I will be getting picked up to chase the Wood Sandpiper that is being seen at Prime Hook in Delaware. It was seen at 9:00am this morning and we should be there around 1:00pm. Hopefully we get there while its around! This is the first East Coast record since the [...]

The highlight of a mornings walk around Lancaster County Central Park was the Olive-sided Flycatcher I found perched at the tippy top of a tree. I did not have my camera along so I took some shots with my phone, through by binoculars- phonescoping! They didn’t turn out amazing but you can see the vest [...]

An Aechmophorus grebe (either Western or Clark’s) was reported today at Blue Marsh Lake by a local birder. Being only about 45 minutes away I jumped in my car and drove down to the lake, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bird. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the bird from the multiple [...]