Sunday, June 15, 2008

Harmarville and North Park, May 4, 2008

Dave, one of the characters that I work with at the store, told me of a Green Wing Teal that he had been seeing in Harmarville, PA. I was familiar with the area which is less than 20 minutes from my house and we were due for some rain around 10 am so I got to Harmarville around 6:45am to look for this teal.

This part of Harmarville has a small marsh or wetlands area behind a shopping plaza. I parked the truck a short distance away from where he told me to look for this teal, set up my equipment and walked to where this teal was supposed to be living. I got to the general area and sure enough there he was feeding n the grass on the edge of the water. His spring mating colors were stunning. I just took my time and kept snapping pictures of him. At one point I was a little less than 25 yards away which is outstanding for this species. These little ducks are usually very skittish, before today the closest I have been was about 80 yards.


I was so busy concentrating on the teal that I didn’t notice the other ducks milling about in the grass and gravel at the edge of the marsh. A pair of mallards brought their newly hatched young out to eat. I swung the digiscope in their direction and got some good shots of these youngsters.


About 10 minutes after the mallard family showed up a pair of Canada geese brought their new goslings out as well. The goslings seemed to take over where the ducklings were. The ducklings didn’t like this so they went running to mom. Mom mallard was sitting on the ground enjoying her time away from the kids until they came running to her for protection from the goose bullies. Mom mallard patiently stood up and all of the ducklings hid under her. I was laughing out loud while watching this go on.


I turned back to the teal and saw that he was joined by a Wood Duck drake. These two guys were bouncing all over the place and it was nearly impossible to get shots of them standing still.

The teal, wood duck, mallard and goose families soon made their way back to the marsh and I decided to make a run to North Park to see what was there. I got to Marshall Lake at North Park about 30 minutes later to find that the county had blocked access to the footbridge to the island. I guessed that this was to protect the three pairs of nesting geese that took up temporary residence there. Thunder rumbled in the distance so I decided that it was time to go home.

North Park, April 26, 2008

It’s springtime now and I have a lot of responsibilities pulling me in different directions; because of that it’s been almost two weeks since my last outing. Once again this morning I was limited on time. Today I had to meet my sister so that I could do some work on her computer therefore I had about 3 hours to digiscope this morning.

I decided to hit North Park again. This time of the year is the middle of the song bird migration and the start of the mating season for those that nest in this area. Because of this activity, I figured that North Park would give me the best opportunities in the amount of time that I had.


I pulled into the parking area at Marshall Lake just after sunrise. While I was setting up the digiscope I saw that there were swallows flying all over the surface of the lake, they were catching an early morning hatch of mosquitoes. I stopped on the road side of the footbridge to the island to watch. I noticed that the swallows would buzz around the lake for a while then stop to rest of the railings of the footbridge. I decided to just wait for them to come to me.


While I was waiting for the swallows to rest on the bridge railings I was able to get a few shots of a pair of Grackles at the top of a tree on the island and also pictures of a Yellow Warbler in another tree.


The swallows finally came to rest on the bridge railings. I was able to get a multitude of pictures of these little birds. I was excited because these birds rarely stop for a rest like this.


After shooting the swallows I made my way across the bridge to the island. Halfway across the bridge I noticed that a goose was sitting on a nest on the island near the bridge landing. This could very well be the same goose on the same nest that I got pictures of last year. I got some great pictures then so I snapped another handful for this year.


I finally finished crossing the bridge to the island. On the far side of the island is a fallen tree that I like to call “The Perch”. Birds will fly from all around the lake to perch and call from this tree. I’ve gotten more pictures of more species of birds on this tree than I have anywhere else I have been and this morning was no different. When I first got to that side of the island a Red-Winged Black Bird was calling his heart out from one of the top branches of “The Perch”.


As I was watching for activity on The Perch a wood duck swam from the feeder stream at the North end of the lake to the nest boxes across the lake from me. You just know that I had to snap some pictures of this guy too.


As I saw when I first arrived this morning, the swallows were still buzzing the surface of the lake. I couldn’t see the footbridge from where I was so I can’t be sure if they were still stopping to rest there or not. They were however landing on The Perch. I was lucky enough to get good pictures of both Tree and Rough-Winged swallows as they rested on the limbs of the dead tree.


It was a good morning and it was getting close to the sister-meeting time. I decided to call it quits for the day and move on to other chores.