Today, Mark Markiewicz and I made a huge birding loop from Hershey, down to Lancaster County, then Berks County, then Lebanon County, and finally back to Hershey. We were trying to pick up as many of the interesting species of birds recently reported as possible. The first stop was along Hess Road near New Holland to see if any wintering Wilson’s Snipes were along the stream that flows near the road, no luck there, but there was a beautiful Merlin nearby that allowed me to get close for some photos. Merlin eating a Dark-eyed Junco Our second stop was the farm fields near New Holland for the Rough-legged Hawks, Horned Larks, Snow Buntings, and Lapland Longspurs. There were quite a few large flocks of Horned Larks.
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I am fascinated by birds of prey. They are by far, my favorite group of birds and whenever I am hawk-watching or out birding and see raptors, I really like to try to age and sex the individual birds I see, whenever possible. When I was down in Florida last week, I was fortunate enough to see one of North America’s most beautiful raptors, the Crested Caracara. My girlfriend Anna and I would go out everyday searching for nesting caracaras as part of a project she is working on in Florida. This offered me the chance to see lots of Crested Caracaras, up close and personal. Sub-adult Crested Caracara Crested Caracaras cannot be sexed in the field.
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This evening, Ian Gardner and I went to search for Short-eared Owls along Peter’s Mountain Rd in Dauphin County. Ian had seen one owl there last evening. Around 4:20pm, I spotted one owl hunting over the fields. Ian quickly spotted a second owl. The two owls made a few passes around the field, then went out of view. Below are some terrible quality photos I took.
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Most people are living in an icy winter wonderland, where no butterflies would dare to fly. But down in Florida, it stays warm enough that quite a few species are able to survive the winter. When I was down in Florida for the past 12 days I was able to find quite a few species. Most people know I love birds, but I also really enjoy finding and photographing butterflies. The following are a few species I saw during my trip. Zebra Longwing – Florida’s State Butterfly; I have seen this species on other trips to Florida, but this trip was my first chance to actually photograph it.
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This past weekend I was in Lancaster County and so I decided to look for a couple of the interesting birds that have been around southeastern PA. I started off Saturday at the Anna’s Hummingbird in Shartlesville, which I got to see take off from her night roost. For helping rehang the frozen feeders after they were thawed, I was rewarded with some hot chocolate that made the cold wait more bearable. I then headed off for Blue Marsh as it started snowing where both a lingering Yellow-throated Warbler and some Pine Warblers had been reported coming to some peanut butter suet spread on the trees.
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Well I am back from Florida. I met up with two friends of mine yesterday in Lake Placid and we drove straight back home to Pennsylvania and pulled into my driveway at noon today. I spent 12 days down in the Sunshine State birding and it was a ton of fun. Anna and I started off the trip by birding around the Miami area and I finished 2010 with 463 species of birds. Then we spent the rest of my trip birding around the Lake Placid region of Florida.  I ended up seeing 137 species of birds on this trip down to Florida, 28 of which I had never seen in Florida before! Limpkin - One of my favorite Florida birds! (Photo taken on 1/8/11) Anna lives on the Buck Island Ranch near Lake Placid. This ranch is home to the MacArthur Agro-ecology Research Center.
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This past weekend I was down in Lancaster County where there was a fresh covering of snow on the fields. The new snow on the ground provided excellent opportunities for photographing raptors as the reflection off of the snow lit up the undersides of the hawks. I took these photos near Wakefield in southern Lancaster County while I was out looking for a spot that Short-eared Owls had been reported recently. I think the farmer was dumping dead animals out in the fields which was drawing in large numbers of vultures.
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On January 5th, I was able to help out with a Christmas Bird Count at the Avon Park Air Force Range in Florida. This CBC is entirely conducted within the Air Force Base. Our team consisted of Reed Bowman, Shane Pruett, Anna Fasoli, Jenn Smith, and myself. We started the day off at 5:45am, trying a few locations for Eastern Screech-Owl. We didn’t get any to respond but Barred Owls were calling at various locations. We did end up hearing two screech owls later in the day. We drove over to a dike through a large wetland area to be there for sunrise. In the last minutes of darkness, we were able to hear King Rails, Common Moorhens, Mottled Ducks, and various other wetland birds calling. Once the sun rose, we were surrounded by Swamp Sparrow and Common Yellowthroats. Jenn Smith spotted a Purple Gallinule among some Common Moorhens.
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An early walk at Millbrook Marsh added another two birds to the year list. I finally found a Song Sparrow and a Green-winged Teal was a nice surprise as well. I am slowing checking off the easy species that are around and soon I’ll have to look a lot harder to find new birds. Green-winged Teal at Millbrook Marsh- photo by Justine Green-winged Teal at Millbrook Marsh- photo by Justine At the Duck Pond, the highlight was definitely a Muskrat that Justine spotted and photographed while I was distracted with the ducks and geese.
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Everyday down here in Florida, Anna and I go out and search for Crested Caracaras. Our goal is to find adults copulating, nest building, or already on nests. We see loads of caracaras everyday, sometimes up to 20 or 30 at a time! Most are not on nests or breeding just yet and are just in groups foraging or heading to (or coming off) roost. We try to spend quite a bit of time watching each caracara to see what it does and to see if it will lead us to any nests.
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