Here are a couple shots of the Ash-throated Flycatcher in Lebanon Co. Behavior was very interesting, it foraged very low in the brush and grasses, often dropping down to catch something. 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.
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And so we learned with a recent saw-whet that we attempted to track. She was released from the banding station at around 10pm and we tracked her for several hours but by 3 am she was gone, presumably having flown to the south out of range of our equipment. This is a picture of Feist, another owl that left without giving us much time to track it. We were able to get one days roost data before the weekend, and when we came back, she was gone. Related articles by Zemanta Feist (nscnaowls.blogspot.com) Was it something we said? (nscnaowls.blogspot.
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Well, let me tell you… We have now been tracking Isra for over 2 weeks now, with a lot of good data coming from our long nights at King’s Gap and in the Michaux State Forest. With the migration season in full swing for the owls, we are now starting to hear the strange barks and whines of the saw-whets as we are walking through the forest. Sometimes it’s the owl we are tracking, but often it is another saw-whet in the woods. Isra perched high in a pitch pine Isra has a routine going for her that she repeats every night we have been tracking her. Soon after dark, she leaves her roost and becomes very active, flying back and forth along the King’s Gap/Michaux State Forest border. She keeps us on our toes as we run around, trying to figure out where she is off to.
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The newest saw-whet owl with a transmitter is Esmerelda. Here she is with breakfast in her talons.
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Here are two more shots I took the other morning. They give me an idea of what the camera is capable of when I have good lighting and more time to compose the shots.
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I just purchased a new camera, the Nikon P6000, and took it out for a quick test to see how well it worked thru my scope. The lighting wasn’t too great but I found a Brown Creeper that was cooperative and managed a couple nice shots.
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This is one of the eastern screech owls we have caught at the saw-whet banding operations. There are usually one or two that get curious enough each year to get caught in the nets.
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A couple weeks ago I started at a new job as the field tech for the Northern Saw-whet Owl telemetry project run by the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in central PA. So far most of the time has been spent training and waiting for the owls to begin migrating thru our area. Due to several factors including weather, saw-whet migration is behind normal schedule but we have radio-tagged one saw-whet owl so far, Xena. We also radio-tagged a screech owl, Skreech, for training purposes while we were waiting for our first saw-whet. Here is a shot of her, high up in a chestnut oak staring down at us.
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I took some distance shots of the Red-necked Phalarope that is in a flooded field on Evansville Rd in Berks County. Pretty far away for a good picture but it was neat to watch it actively swimming around. Hopefully it will stick around for a few days for more people to see it. Check out the map below for directions.
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 Yesterday at Speedwell Forge Park in northern Lancaster County, PA I came across a pair of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers building a nest and pulling material from the tent catepillars tent. I was able to get pretty close as they flew in and out and got some neat pictures and a video.
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