Showing posts with label Heislersville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heislersville. Show all posts

Monday, October 3, 2011

Rainy start to October has been excellent!

Well with yet ANOTHER camping weekend being washed out, Deb, Ron, and I were bummed out a bit. But, Deb and I decided to get some birding in anyway yesterday, even in the rain. The morning started well, as I was checking the weather we had this Cape May Warbler visit our stream/pond out front!
Having done Cape May, Brig, and Donio park a million times in the last month, I decided to go to one of my spring herping/birding routes to see what I could come up with. So we hit Jackson Road and Cedar Lake first. 2 Cape May Warblers and 2 Yellow Rumped Warblers were the highlights here amongst a modest flock of migrants.

Then Heislersville WMA. Rain coming down. Not much in the impoundments. So we decided to call it quits. On our way out, In a pretty steady rain, we ran into a very large flock of migrants, and while trying to keep the rain off our lenses, we started calling out lots of birds!
Baltimore Oriole, Redstart, Magnolia, Waterthrush, Yellow, B+W, BTB, Yellowthroat, Parula, Palm, White Eyed Vireo, Red Eyed Vireo, Phoebe...Bald Eagle above!

So in about 3 hours of birding we ended up seeing 63 species!

So I decided today I would do my usual lazy route: Donio, then the backyard.
Donio was loaded with great shorebirds. 13!! Pectoral Sandpipers! Semipalmated, Least, L Yellowlegs, 27 Killdeer, and a solo Spotted Sandpiper.

The house was even better...12 migrating Ospreys, Merlin, Chestnut Sided Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Redstart, Yellowthroat, Cape May Warbler, RE Vireo, House Wren, 5 Indigo Buntings.

So even though we didn't camp, we got our fair share of birds!

Milestones:
Yard Bird #115 - Tennessee Warbler
Atlantic County Bird #222 - Northern Waterthrush
Cumberland County Birds #166-168 - N Waterthrush, BTB Warbler, Magnolia Warbler