Significant, heavy snowstorm last night in the greater Erie area – at least 30 cm. With the snow, a fairly steep dropoff in observable bird activity, other than some American Crows here and there.
While waiting for the roads to get cleared, a few shots from earlier in the fall of Yellow-bellied Sapsucker along the Pine Tree Trail, Presque Isle State Park:
Dateline: 12-13 November 2022
First up, been remiss in not mentioning again all the DCNR trail work at Presque Isle State Park this fall. For example, very excited to see the swampy crossing on the Long Pond Trail (above) filled in with rip-rap. (At least one BirdingPI.com staff member has previously fallen afoul of this slippery/treacherous morass.)
Moving on, awful weather in Erie over the weekend. Rainy all day Friday. Saturday, cold, overcast, periodic rain. Sunday, cold, overcast, very windy, periodic rain/snow/hail. Nevertheless, BirdingPI.com teams were dispatched as conditions allowed.
With duck hunting season officially open (e.g., numerous duck blinds on Presque Isle Bay and Thompson Bay), ‘duck watching’ conditions are highly variable, depending on location, time/day, etc.
Very interesting activity on the inner back bay between “Vista 2 Parking Lot” and “Vista 1 Parking Lot:” large flock of American Coot with Ring-billed Gull and Lesser Scaup on Saturday, + Bufflehead and Common Merganser on Sunday.
Here’s a shot with Coot in the foreground, Bufflehead at mid-frame, and Common Merganser flying in from the upper left corner:
Camera was at too slow a shutter speed for this shot:
Lots of Gull and Coot drama, with the former harassing the latter for food:
Moving over to Long Pond:
Finally, some shots of the bad weather for context:
Final note that all trail conditions are relatively wet due to recent precipitation. For example, west end of Long Pond Trail currently flooded out.
Too many memory cards, too many photographs. Can’t remember if these were already published, but pushing them out (again) to clear the decks. From Thompson Bay in the last few weeks.
Following all Golden-crowned Kinglet. More Kinglet!
“Wren-ten-ten.” Bottom of the barrel for wren puns, but at least there’s 10 photos…
Extremely cute House Wren from the recent past at Presque Isle State Park, near the Thompson Circle swamp/pond.
Brutal weather out at Presque Isle yesterday – cold, wind, rain/snow/sleet. Some interesting duck/etc. activity on the back bay, however – stay tuned for BirdingPI.com’s posts later in the week!
Heavy overcast and PM rain in Erie on Saturday. Overcast and snow/mix this Sunday morning. Neither a good weekend for being outside nor bird photography. (Full report forthcoming in the next day or two.)
Meanwhile, Song Sparrow!
From the other weekend, on the east/meadow-end of the portion of Dead Pond sandwiched between Pine Tree Trail and the road/beach.
Residual rain and heavy overcast this Saturday morning. BirdingPI.com teams being dispatched to Presque Isle State Park as soon as conditions warrant.
Moving on…
Rule 1: Never enough post-Halloween, 1/2-off candy corn #Brach’s #yum; Rule 2: Never enough Kinglet content. So either that or more Ring-billed Gull content… Sorry, Ring-billed Gull, but not a contest.
Shots above and down to the Mallards below – near Long Pond, from earlier in the fall.
Moving on to the Thompson Circle swamp/pond:
Ruby-crowned Kinglet:
Nearby, off Thompson Bay, more Golden-crowned Kinglet:
Finally, super cute House Sparrow @ Budny Beach parking east:
[Photo Editor’s note: All very nice!]
Tomorrow, more bird!
Wishing a happy Veterans Day to folks in the US – a big ‘thank you’ to everyone who served!
Rain moving into Erie today, potentially snow (!) on Sunday. Fingers crossed for some dry weather at some point over the weekend #nature.
Dateline: 5-6 November 2022. Saturday, Pine Tree Trail – nothing says “slow birding day” like shots of wild fruit:
View of Gull Point observation platform from Thompson Bay:
And, moving on to Sunday, out to Gull Point. See previous posts on Dunlin, Snow Bunting, etc. Here, looking north from Budny Beach:
On the Gull Point outer old trail:
View of Thompson bay from Gull Point outer beach:
Two shots looking north/northwest towards the Gull Point observation platform, from the outer beach:
On the outer beach, after spotting the Dunlin, there were two of these:
Hard to ID. Dark legs, medium beak, well-delineated back feathers, some streaking/spotting on the chest, hints of spotting. Semipalmated Sandpiper? Baird’s Sandpiper? Of note, the wings appear to extend past the tail, which suggests the latter vs. the former.
Back on the outer old trail, lovely non-breeding American Goldfinch:
Tomorrow, more bird!
Before moving on to nature content, a rare ‘behind the scenes’ look at BirdingPI.com HQ, by popular request. Here, the website’s artistic ‘nerve center,’ the photo editor’s desk:
Very exciting.
Moving on, shots from the beautiful woodlands around the Ridge Trail/Marsh Trail junction from the other weekend. First up, backlit Red-tailed Hawk:
Woodpecker tongue –> Nice!
Shot of the day:
What’s this? Female Common Grackle? Rusty Blackbird? You be the judge.
Two of Yellow-rumped Warbler:
Might be Hermit Thrush:
Tomorrow, back to Gull Point with the weekend update!
Dateline: 6 November 2022
Back to the regular full moon on 8 November 2022, handheld @850mm (slightly cropped):
From Sunday, with Gull Point open for the ‘off season,’ time for a BirdingPI.com survey @ outer beach.
Not a ton of bird activity; highlight was this amazingly cute trio of Dunlin.
Tomorrow, back to the Ridge Trail!
Dateline: 8 November 2002′
Wishing everyone in the US a happy election day, and for those in relevant areas, a happy lunar eclipse! Here in Erie, partially thwarted (as usual) by morning lake-effect clouds + wind. (Tough doing long exposure shots in windy conditions.) But enough of an early window at 5:30AM for some slapdash photography:
Moving on to more important matters, amazing to see Snow Bunting and Lapland Longspur out at Gull Point, Presque Isle State Park, on Sunday, 6 November 2022. Many thanks to the kind passersby/birders who pointed them out.
Small birds at a distance against dry mudflat/vegetation = hard to spot:
Cloudy weather + long distance + small birds, etc. = mostly bad photos. Still, fun to see! (#more_bird!)
Following is front view of the Longspur (top bird). Note the fairly substantial black smudging below the throat (‘bib’) and on the top of the head – these patches would be more solid black in a breeding male:
Tomorrow, a surprise visit from BirdingPI.com’s favorite shorebird!