Allegheny County 11-23-2008

Earlier this week I had heard of an odd waterfowl species that was showing up at Nine Mile Run on the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh. This species was an Atlantic Brant which is very rare for this area; they are much more of a coastal bird. According to the reports that I had heard, the brant was staying in the vicinity of the 9-Mile Run stream mouth almost all day. I decided to get up early this morning to see if I could find this guy.

I arrived at 9-Mile Run shortly before dawn and set up my equipment, the weather was clear and cold with a temperature in the mid 20’s. I no sooner had the equipment set up when I spotted the brant, he was standing in shallow water, just off of the gravel bar that juts out from the shore near the mouth of 9-Mile Run. I quickly snapped some pictures before the sun became too bright because I was facing Southeast and the sun would have been almost directly in the lens of the digiscope and ruined the pictures. I was also able to get some relatively good video of the brant. I was glad that I got out this morning to see this guy, because he is a very rare visitor to Allegheny County.



While I was there I saw an odd looking duck, it was multi-colored and a little larger than a mallard. It was probably some sort of domestic duck that found its way to the Mon River.



You can also find videos of the Atlantic Brant here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEB-CjUQez4

here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV6oBvd-j_w

and here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgWgcdRw8Xg

Eventually the brant made his way down the river with a small flock of Mallards and he was quickly out of my range. It was still early so I decided to pack up and head to North Park to see what I could find there.

I arrived at North Park to find most of the main lake frozen with just the usual flock of Canada Geese there. I checked Marshall Lake and found that completely frozen. I thought that I was out of luck and made my way back through the park. I was nearing the park boundary when I spotted a flock of 30 Wild Turkeys near one of the houses in the park. I quickly pulled over and grabbed the digiscope.



The turkeys were just coming into the field near this house to eat so I made the most of the opportunity and started snapping pictures. Shortly after the flock entered the field, someone cam out of the house and threw some corn into the field for the turkeys. They made a beeline for the corn so I adjusted the digiscope and continued snapping my shots of the now much closer birds. I was even able to get some short videos of the “Turkey Feeding Frenzy” that I was witnessing.

The turkey videos can be found here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orxdNA7anYQ

here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjkPqPEo3sw

and here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLVtO7_zWwY

In a short time, the battery in the camera started to run low and the memory card filled up. I decided to call it a morning and head for home.

As usual you can find all of my pictures on my Picasa page, the pictures for this blog are in Digiscoping Set 14.

http://picasaweb.google.com/richwiz34

I’d like to thank all of the kind folks on the PA Birds mailing list, if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have known the Atlantic Brant was so close to home.