One of the more interesting sightings recently was near Shady Grove in Franklin County. Eurasian Collared-Doves are easily found right in the town but I came across two pairs outside of town.

Other common birds on recent surveys are Field Sparrows and Indigo Buntings.

The summer has been busy so far, with road road surveys across a 20 county region in central Pennsylvania. Highlights have been Henslow’s Sparrows in Bedford County, Red-headed Woodpeckers in Franklin County and Blue Grosbeaks in at least four counties. I also found a male Dickcissel singing from a hayfield in eastern Lancaster County.

Most of the days I have been too busy in the morning to get any pictures of the birds I have been seeing, but I did manage this Savannah Sparrow that perched on the wire at the Mt. Pleasant Road pond in Lebanon County.

In the photo below, a Purple Martin perched on the same wire but I couldn’t manage as good of a shot because of how dark it is and the high amount of backlighting.

Click to zoom in on the graph.

It looks like we can expect the big push to come in the first week of June. I wonder if that first little bump is due to the excitement of seeing them for the first time, which wears off after a week or so.

View Tufted Duck in a larger map

Ever since I first began using the Sibley guides, I have been continuously impressed with how accurately he portrayed the birds in various poses, both perching and flying, and at different ages. There have been numerous occasions when I read about a “new” field mark to use, only to look in Sibley and it is already perfectly illustrated. He also shows the wide range of variation exhibited by many species of birds. This has now been brought to a much more portable form factor in the iPhone.

One great feature of this app is that you are able to compare two different species on the screen at the same time. The app allows you to flip thru all the available illustrations of each bird for comparison as well as bring up the range maps (left) and songs/calls for comparison. As you can see below (right), there is also a good selection of songs for each species, better than any iPhone app I have tried so far.

Perhaps the strongest feature of this app is the sheer number of high quality illustrations for each species. Each species is shown in each distinctive plumage as well as in flight. This is great when you are trying to find a Lapland Longspur hiding in a flock of Horned Larks and want to quickly see what field marks to scan for.

A great example of the included illustrations is the Red-tailed Hawk. There are no less than 39 illustrations of Red-tailed Hawks in addition to 7 silhouettes, depicting all the different forms from eastern to Krider’s and Harlan’s at several different ages, in flight from above and below, and perched. It is easy to quickly flick up and down between the different illustrations.

For each species there is size, habitat and behaviour information as well as descriptions of the songs and calls they make.. Some other features include the ability to set you location and then have your list limited to birds in your region, keep track of your life list, and search for birds by habitat, color and other attributes.

So far I am pretty impressed with the app and can see myself actually referencing this in the field. Sibley has once again released the field guide that made all others look obsolete in comparison. No other app provides the comprehensive audio and illustrations available on the Sibley eGuide. This app will join BirdsEye as my daily references for birding. Let me know in the comments what you think about this new app.

Buy the Sibley eGuide for $29.99 on the iTunes store.

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I missed the more interesting field birds, but did manage to find several large flocks of Horned Larks that were pushed closer to the road and feeding on any bare strip of ground they could find. At one point, a merlin strafed the flock and perched on a post near me. All these photos I took out of my car window, holding the scope by hand.

I then came across an interesting gull. It piqued my interest due to the dark area around the eyes, coloration of the bill and what I thought was a longer primary extension.

In the end, the pink legs and light colored iris point to this just being a well marked American Herring Gull. It’s always neat to see the variation that Herring Gulls are capable of. This bird is likely either a 3rd cycle gull or a 4th cycle gull, due to several darker tertials and the darker bill color.

Below is the shot that can really clinch the id. The tail pattern on Ash-throated Flycatchers has a dark outer edge at the bottom of the outer tail feathers.

Below are some shots I had taken of the similar Great Crested Flycatcher.