Nature Note #103: Adventures in Pennsylvania: Middle Creek WMA
So this past week, I've traveled to a new home once again and got settled in. I'm happy to report that the people and place I'll be working at for the next few months are lovely, quaint, and filled with fun and adventures to be had. We start with our first school on Monday and I'm so ready to start teaching again. Naturally, with my first "well-earned" weekend, I set out to find some life birds.
While traveling along the now familiar Interstate 76, I had decided the night before to visit Middle Creek WMA in Stevens because of the huge numbers of wintering waterfowl that could be found there. While driving, I wondered how I would look for the Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus) that had been reported there. It didn't take me long to find them. As I entered the parking lot, I munched on a granola bar and thought about my game plan. As usual, I'd come up with nothing and decided that randomly ambling about until I either got bored or frustrated was going to be the likely solution. As I exited the car, I heard a sound like a hollow yodeling. Cranes perhaps?!
No, but it sounded similar. I looked up. A long V of Tundras flew overhead. I managed to snap a few photos with my iPhone. Lacking my trusty Canon (it was suffering a lens error that made it inoperable unfortunately) was hard and I know I need another so I can take good photos again soon. They sound like buglers winging their way to where ever they feel the need to be. Perhaps they will go north, but I wasn't too sure.
After getting the birds I'd come to see within the first ten seconds of arriving, I was more relaxed and decided to check out the visitor center nearby. The walls were lined with taxidermy wildlife consisting of mostly waterfowl, but a few examples of native wildlife, songbirds, and game animals were also mixed in. Many exhibits showed the importance of waterfowling for habitat protection and conservation, as well as potent revenue generator. A large bay window overlooked the nearby lake and a small bird feeder. The window was lined by tables with binoculars for the visitors to use. Sparrows, titmice, a female Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus), a single chickadee (being in ambiguous chickadee territory, I wasn't about to guess the species), and a goldfinch or two scurried on and below the feeder. I watched and tallied. I was in birding mode alright and I was wondering if I could get a nearby Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) (given that there were several thousand out on the ice, it wouldn't be too difficult.) for the year list.
I drove back up the road to a nearby dirt lot that had trails leading down to the lake. The Willow Creek Trail parking lot was woefully stuffed with cars and people so I instead adopted the secondary tactic of watching from a small rise up the road and spotting the geese that way. Almost as soon as I pulled out, the geese on the nearby frozen lake rose up and swirled over the glazed surface. I stood in awe. The whole week, I think I'd heard the word "awesome" used over and over, but this probably was the only time when the use of such a word was appropriate. What stunned me was the size of the flock and the density of the birds. There were just so many of them! They tumbled and swirled like black-tipped snowflakes with some peeling off into their own Vs. They flew over my car to the tree-lined hills beyond. A second flock did the same and a large, dark bird came into view over the nearby field.
It looked like an eagle, so I looked closer with the binoculars. "One does not simply ignore an eagle!", I thought to myself. As I looked at the sharp image in my 10x42s, I noticed a few things about this eagle that made it seem unusual. To start, it soared with a slight dihedral and seemed slimmer bodied than our national symbol. Other features that would indicate the bird on the Presidential Seal such as a white head, large flat wings, and a tendency for preemptive strikes, were absent as well. There were large white patches on the broad wings, as well as, an extensive white tail base seemed to be pointing to a rare, but regular eastern winter visitor to the mid-Atlantic states. While I was fairly certain what I was seeing was a Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), but I wouldn't confirm it until I read a couple of field guides back at the house. (Any birders reading this far will have scoffed loudly at the snobbery shown by not bringing field guides into the field as if I were suggesting at this point that I'm actually "that" good at field ID. Well I am...so deal. :P )
Upon my return to Horsham and after consulting Hawks in Flight by Pete Dunne, David Allen Sibley, and Clay Sutton, The Sibley Guide to Birds by David Allen Sibley, and The Crossley Guide: Eastern Birds by Richard Crossley (I'll explain my reversal of opinion on this field guide another time), it was pretty conclusive. Any dark raptor with white wing patches, a white tail base, light nape, and a slight diherdral was likely to be a juvenile/first year Golden Eagle. I couldn't believe my luck at getting not one, but two life birds in one day and it isn't even spring migration! I've got a good feeling about this job and I feel like it's going to be a great boost for me in my career, life, and well being. I'm ready to begin and even more pumped about what's to come!
While traveling along the now familiar Interstate 76, I had decided the night before to visit Middle Creek WMA in Stevens because of the huge numbers of wintering waterfowl that could be found there. While driving, I wondered how I would look for the Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus) that had been reported there. It didn't take me long to find them. As I entered the parking lot, I munched on a granola bar and thought about my game plan. As usual, I'd come up with nothing and decided that randomly ambling about until I either got bored or frustrated was going to be the likely solution. As I exited the car, I heard a sound like a hollow yodeling. Cranes perhaps?!
No, but it sounded similar. I looked up. A long V of Tundras flew overhead. I managed to snap a few photos with my iPhone. Lacking my trusty Canon (it was suffering a lens error that made it inoperable unfortunately) was hard and I know I need another so I can take good photos again soon. They sound like buglers winging their way to where ever they feel the need to be. Perhaps they will go north, but I wasn't too sure.
After getting the birds I'd come to see within the first ten seconds of arriving, I was more relaxed and decided to check out the visitor center nearby. The walls were lined with taxidermy wildlife consisting of mostly waterfowl, but a few examples of native wildlife, songbirds, and game animals were also mixed in. Many exhibits showed the importance of waterfowling for habitat protection and conservation, as well as potent revenue generator. A large bay window overlooked the nearby lake and a small bird feeder. The window was lined by tables with binoculars for the visitors to use. Sparrows, titmice, a female Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus), a single chickadee (being in ambiguous chickadee territory, I wasn't about to guess the species), and a goldfinch or two scurried on and below the feeder. I watched and tallied. I was in birding mode alright and I was wondering if I could get a nearby Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) (given that there were several thousand out on the ice, it wouldn't be too difficult.) for the year list.
I drove back up the road to a nearby dirt lot that had trails leading down to the lake. The Willow Creek Trail parking lot was woefully stuffed with cars and people so I instead adopted the secondary tactic of watching from a small rise up the road and spotting the geese that way. Almost as soon as I pulled out, the geese on the nearby frozen lake rose up and swirled over the glazed surface. I stood in awe. The whole week, I think I'd heard the word "awesome" used over and over, but this probably was the only time when the use of such a word was appropriate. What stunned me was the size of the flock and the density of the birds. There were just so many of them! They tumbled and swirled like black-tipped snowflakes with some peeling off into their own Vs. They flew over my car to the tree-lined hills beyond. A second flock did the same and a large, dark bird came into view over the nearby field.
It looked like an eagle, so I looked closer with the binoculars. "One does not simply ignore an eagle!", I thought to myself. As I looked at the sharp image in my 10x42s, I noticed a few things about this eagle that made it seem unusual. To start, it soared with a slight dihedral and seemed slimmer bodied than our national symbol. Other features that would indicate the bird on the Presidential Seal such as a white head, large flat wings, and a tendency for preemptive strikes, were absent as well. There were large white patches on the broad wings, as well as, an extensive white tail base seemed to be pointing to a rare, but regular eastern winter visitor to the mid-Atlantic states. While I was fairly certain what I was seeing was a Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), but I wouldn't confirm it until I read a couple of field guides back at the house. (Any birders reading this far will have scoffed loudly at the snobbery shown by not bringing field guides into the field as if I were suggesting at this point that I'm actually "that" good at field ID. Well I am...so deal. :P )
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| My answers were to be found on page 126-27 in the Sibley Guide and 234-5 of the Crossley Guide |
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