Pennsylvania Game News - April 2017 - 55

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 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.
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, 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, when we set out on foot and saw
the first black-throated green warbler on
APRIL 2017

the forest edge 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 at the edge of
Sapsucker Ridge, from the same tree we'd
heard one 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.
Eastern bluebirds busied themselves
in and out of their nest box near the barn,
while eastern towhees sang and called
loudly wherever we walked, making it
difficult to hear other birds, except the
American crows.
Woodpeckers also were active. A pileated drummed and called near his old nest
site. A red-bellied woodpecker 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!
55

Pennsylvania Game News - April 2017

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