Earth Day Birding Classic

It was the brain child of our youngest son, Mark, who teaches geography and environmental studies at Penn State Altoona and one of his students, Catherine Farr. Laura Jackson, president of our Juniata Valley Audubon Society, quickly signed on to their Earth Day Birding Classic 2016.

Patterned after the numerous bird-a-thons, such as the world-renown, New Jersey World Series of Birding, participants had to join one of five designated categories and count as many bird species as possible during a 24-hour period—noon April 22 (Earth Day) until noon April 23. Within each category, every team had to choose a name. Although the geographic area covered by the Birding Classic was Blair County and the counties that border it—Centre, Clearfield, Cambria, Bedford, and Huntingdon—only two team categories could bird more than one county—Osprey, which consisted of Penn State students, and Coot, the senior citizen category for folks 65 years and over.

It probably won’t surprise you that Mark created the Coot (think “old coot”) category specifically for my husband Bruce and me and that we were the only team in that category, even though there were other participants older than that who signed up for other categories. Furthermore, we had to dream up an appropriate team name. In keeping with the elder theme we called ourselves the White-crowned Sparrows.

Although everyone involved considered this a fun project, we also had to get pledges in bird-a-thon style for either each species identified or a flat contribution to a team. I hate to ask people for money (my little sister used to sell my Girl Scout cookies for me), so I limited my request to Facebook friends and received a few pledges when folks realized that their money would support bird conservation and bird education in Central Pennsylvania.

Previously, except for my Winter Raptor Survey in Sinking Valley, all my other yearly bird counts—the Christmas Bird Count in December, Great Backyard Bird Count in February, and International Migratory Bird Count in mid-May—had been done on our property.

I was eager to try my luck in other areas, so on Earth Day at noon, Bruce and I were off under warm, humid and overcast skies. Since his eyes weren’t as good and my hearing not as sharp (we are, after all, in our mid-seventies), we figured that between the two of us and good optics, we could find at least three dozen species. That’s what we told potential donors anyway. Besides, the spring was late and many of our usual mid-April arrivals had not yet shown up on our mountain.

Our first destination was Canoe Creek State Park, where I hoped to find waterfowl on the lake. I wasn’t disappointed. We were met by a Pipit team, friends of ours from the Juniata Valley Audubon Society who were competing in the “on foot only” category. As we set up our scope, they kindly pointed out three rafts of lesser scaup, four horned grebes and a common merganser, as well as many mallards and Canada geese. An osprey flew overhead and then landed on a tree across the lake. Through the scope we had a marvelous view of this masked, fish-loving raptor that has recovered in Pennsylvania due to conservation efforts.

We spent more time than we should have at the park, combing its lawns and brushy areas, but we found common grackles among the dandelions and red-winged blackbirds in the marshes calling their “cheer-i-lee” songs that have always spelled spring to me. Tree swallows swooped past, and we managed to see and hear a yellow warbler, eastern phoebe, yellow-rumped warbler, common yellowthroat and several blue-gray gnatcatchers, but the dominant singers were tufted titmice and American robins.

Then it was on to the Lower Trail, a rails-to-trails site along the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River. This time we did not need a scope to see the rufous-crested head of a female common merganser repeatedly washing her head in the water directly below us. We also heard the rattling cry of a belted kingfisher as it zipped past. Halfway up a talus slope on the other side of the river, we spotted the white head of a male bald eagle sitting on a slanting branch near his nest. On a tree trunk beside the trail we watched a hairy woodpecker foraging and calling.

Best of all for me, though, was hearing a bird I only see occasionally on our mountain, a northern parula high in the sycamore trees beside the river singing his definitive “zeee-up” buzzy trill. This warbler is more easily heard than seen and even though I craned my neck in typical “warbler neck” fashion, I could not catch a glimpse of that small, blue-gray warbler with a yellow-green triangular patch on his back, yellow throat and breast, and necklace of black highlighted by red.

By then it was close to 4:00 p.m. and the overcast skies had started to spit rain. Trying to beat the rainstorm, Bruce quickly drove the 10 miles to Sinking Valley. We managed to hear and see killdeer and were treated to an eastern meadowlark concert on one of the Amish farm fields. A flock of wild turkeys ran across a back road, and just before it started to pour, we encountered calling cock pheasants above us along a fallow field edge while several hens skulked quietly in the underbrush below or stood still beside the road, looking as if they were hiding from their suitors. Of course, we also saw lots of house sparrows, rock pigeons, and European starlings, all birds that we never see on our mountain.

That ended the first half of the Birding Classic. We hoped for better weather the following morning, but it was still cloudy at 6:30 a.m. when we set out on foot on our property and saw the first black-throated green warbler back in the edge of our forest along First Field Trail. A common raven croaked overhead.

Beside Laurel Ridge Trail the first ovenbird sang his “teacher, teacher” song. I also heard the jumble of notes followed by “look at me, look at me,” from a ruby-crowned kinglet and, in the spruce grove, the high-pitched “zee-zee” of a golden-crowned kinglet. A black-and-white warbler sang “wee-sa, wee-sa, wee-sa” from the top of the same tree at the edge of Sapsucker Ridge where a black-and-white warbler sang the previous spring.

A red-tailed hawk sailed over the ridge as we watched the warbler, and as we walked back down First Field, we saw a sharp-shinned hawk sitting in a tree beside the field. Field, song, and white-throated sparrows sang in the brushy field while chipping sparrows buzzed in our shaggy yard. The eastern bluebirds busied themselves in and out of their nest box near the barn, while eastern towhees sang and called loudly wherever we walked especially along Greenbrier Trail, making it difficult to hear other birds except the American crows.

The woodpeckers were also active. A pileated drummed and called near his old nest site. The yard red-bellied fussed his way up to his black locust nest hole. A flock of northern flickers foraged on the woods’ road and downies hitched their way up and down saplings. Northern cardinals, black-capped chickadees, blue jays, brown-headed cowbirds, and American goldfinches rounded out our list.

At 11:30 a.m. we ended our count with a total of 53 species, and since we were the only team in the Coot category, we won. Our gold-colored, flying bird trophy sits in a prominent place in our home as a reminder that we must defend our title this year or hand it over to other old coots.

We are participating again this year from April 22 noon to April 23 noon and we would appreciate any pledges for our team. If you are interested, please contact me (use the contact button). This non-profit event is again co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program at Penn State Altoona and the Juniata Valley Audubon Society. Any money you pledge for us will support bird conservation and education in Central Pennsylvania.