Pennsylvania Game News - June 2019 - 60

red-eyed vireo, common yellowthroat,
eastern phoebe, song sparrow, eastern
wood-pewee and tufted titmouse - singing
in our overgrown yard.
I added other species as I hiked up trails
through our 43-year-old Norway spruce
grove, over to still-filled vernal ponds and
along other trails. When the 2-mile circuit
brought me home at 7:22 a.m., I'd detected
27 species that included six scarlet tanagers, nine ovenbirds, four hooded warblers, three black-throated green warblers
and one black-and-white warbler - all
migrating songbirds whose numbers have
been cut in half since the 1960s.
That seemed about right, considering
I'd passed whole areas on the mountain
that were silent.
In the 1970s, wood thrushes tightly
nested in much of our mountain laurel,
sometimes as close as 10 feet apart. Today,
our bushes mostly are dead or dying from
a leaf fungus, and if I want to hear the
wood thrush's ethereal song, I must hike
much farther to find just one.
The following morning, I walked down
through a hollow and recorded three
Acadian flycatchers and two warblers.
But with all the rain we'd had, our small
stream, which usually is low by mid-June,
was flowing as strongly as it does in early
spring, and through the noise, I could hear
only the louder birds - scarlet tanagers and
red-eyed vireos, as well as the flycatchers.
Continuing my hike, I heard an eastern
wood-pewee, chorusing tufted titmice,
and at last, a wood thrush. Again, I'd
covered about 2 miles.
The last day was hot and humid, I
was down the hollow before sunrise at
5:38, but the noisy stream continued to
interfere, and I headed upslope to another
trail where I picked up American redstarts,
hooded warblers, towhees, a common
flicker, eastern wood-pewee, scarlet
60

tanager, red-bellied woodpecker, northern
cardinals and a brown-headed cowbird.
By the time I reached Butterfly Loop
around our 37-acre First Field, it was
extremely hot. But a gorgeous, singing
rose-breasted grosbeak was my reward.
Back in the yard, a cerulean warbler
and gray catbird joined the morning
chorus and an eastern phoebe was sitting
on her second clutch of eggs. A nesting
blue-gray gnatcatcher called, and a chipping sparrow buzzed louder than usual.
Over the three days, I'd ended up with
38 species, only one more than in 2014.
The red-eyed vireo was tops in number,
with 33 counted, followed by 17 eastern
towhees, 12 hooded warblers, 10 each
of ovenbirds, scarlet tanagers, common
yellowthroats and indigo buntings, seven
each of American redstarts and eastern
wood-pewees, five wood thrushes, and
three each of cerulean warblers and blackthroated green warblers.
Still, I knew more were there. I'd been
listening to and counting singing species here since late April and recorded
at least 57 species in all including blueheaded vireos, brown thrashers, Louisiana
waterthrushes, whip-poor-wills, turkeys,
barred owls, yellow-billed cuckoos,
black-capped chickadees, white-breastednuthatches, ravens, crows, house wrens,
common grackles, pileated, hairy and
downy woodpeckers, red-tailed hawks,
Cooper's hawks and turkey vultures.
This exercise led me to conclude that
Breeding Bird Blitzes, as well as covering as much habitat as possible during
breeding season work together to assess
the numbers, species, and overall health of
Pennsylvania's breeding birds, tasks carried out by the professionals and amateurs
who cherish our birds.

Pennsylvania Game News - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - June 2019