Cloudy and windy but relatively mild on Thursday. Light rain in the evening, with rain overnight turning to snow and blowing wind Friday; relatively severe winter storm conditions. Temperature currently in Millcreek Twp (“Gateway to Presque Isle”)(10:45 EST): -14 deg C. (Yes, it’s a minus sign.) Plus severe wind chill.
Celebrating the cold temps/snow with woodpeckers! Pileated Woodpecker above, from a few days ago. Following clips from today (Friday) near BirdingPI.com HQ, an intrepid Downy Woodpecker:
All BirdingPI.com field activities canceled for safety reasons, until conditions improve, hopefully, over the weekend. Stay warm/safe everyone!
Happy last day of fall/first day of winter, with winter solstice 2022 @ 4:48PM eastern standard time. Hope everyone has a nice day!
What better way to celebrate winter than with white birds? Here, of course, beautiful Tundra Swan on Long Pond, from the last couple weeks @ Presque Isle State Park. (Plus a Mallard or two.)
Tundra Swan (left), Canada Goose (center), Mallard (m & f)(right), and perhaps a female Ring-necked Duck (second from left)(note the white eye ring):
Erie weather: Sunday, overcast and snowy all day, light to heavy depending on location; heavy and almost white-out conditions on Presque Isle Bay. Re. video above, sorry to whichever BirdingPI.com staff member drew the ‘short straw’ for morning duty at South Pier. (More on this below.)
Saturday, cold and mostly overcast, hint of almost-sun at one point. Reasonably ok day for the annual Presque Isle AudubonGreat Christmas Bird Count at Presque Isle State Park and vicinity. Considering the weather, seemed like a decent turnout of birders and bird enthusiasts.
Various ‘merely ok’ shots from the GCBC:
White-throated SparrowWild Turkey @ West PierTundra Swan @ Long Pond
Got some nice shots of the Tundra Swan coming in for a landing, which were ruined due to overexposure. Forgot to crank the exposure comp down after the hawk shots below = totally boneheaded move. Rule Number 4 from Kessler’s Mini-handbook of Great Digital Photography (C&R Press, 2008): always remember to re-adjust the exposure compensation back to zero/neutral.
More White-throated SparrowAnd again
Haven’t seen a Hairy Woodpecker in at least a month:
Hairy
Bird of the day: amazing Cooper’s Hawk, @ Long Pond Trail. Tough conditions in the shade/forest backlit by overcast sky. These shots adjusted in Photoshop as best possible + sharpening via Topaz AI.
Hawk watchAnother view of Cooper’s Hawk
Again, haven’t seen American Robin for weeks. Four individuals in a tree across the road from the Budny Beach restroom building. E.g.:
American beauty
Nice to see American Tree Sparrow @ Thompson Bay. Note the distinctive center chest spot/marking:
Horned Grebe (rear) and GadwallMore American Tree Sparrow
So, back to the topic of South Pier in the snow. Following is a view southeast from North Pier on Saturday, towards the mainland. The gulls to the center right and far right with the dark wings may be Great Black-backed Gull. If so, very cool spotting.
Black-backed Gull?
So, South Pier and East Ave Boat Ramp Sunday morning. Hoping for better shots with a longer lens, or positive ID via spotting scope, but visibility too low for anything other than Ring-billed Gull near the beach:
Gull @ East Ave Boat Ramp beach
Anyway, more on this interesting area later in the week.
Web-hosting platform down for maintenance yesterday. Lots of interesting Presque Isle and Millcreek Twp (“Gateway to Presque Isle”) bird activity to report on later in the week. In the meantime, foraging/feeding behavior from the lovely Black-capped Chickadee. Recent shots from the Thompson Circle swamp/pond (with seeds from Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina)), and earlier shots (the green ones, with probably a species of Goldenrod) from earlier in the fall along the dirt service road passing through Pine Tree Meadows.
Rainy and extremely windy on Thursday, with multiple downed trees in the greater Millcreek Twp (“Gateway to Presque Isle”) area. Hopefully the weather will be nicer into the weekend!
BirdingPI.com team’s going crazy with gull pictures. Hundreds and hundreds of gull pictures. [Photo Editor’s note: “Sigh.”] Here’s “Part II.” Mostly Ring-billed Gull with a few Herring Gull.
