The Stroud Preserve, 13 February 2013

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It is always good to start off the day with a new bird for the preserve. Within a few minutes of heading out this morning a line of duck flew over with long pointy tails! Pintails! Actually it was a good day for waterfowl with 6 species in all. Not bad for an area that doesn’t have a lot of waterfowl habitat. This brings the preserve list up to 166 and my list up to 150. Not bad for my little chunk of Chester County. 

A sign of spring appeared today in that Red-winged Blackbirds have suddenly changed their behavior. In 2013, I have made 20 visits to the Stroud Preserve. I have seen Red-winged Blackbirds on only 7 of those visit, and always in pretty low numbers. I’m sure they were bunched together in a flock somewhere else. Today, however, they were everywhere. It seemed as if every high perch had a male Red-winged Blackbird on it singing (as blackbirds do). The males seemed to be pretty evenly spaced across the landscape at about 50 meters apart. Besides the blackbirds many birds seemed to be quite vociferous today.

The female Great Horned Owl was on her nest as expected. If I had any concerns that the presence of humans would negatively affect the nest I think I need not worry so much about that now. When I arrived at the nest site today I saw that she was being mobbed by about 100 American Crows. They were making and incredible amount of noise. A few of the crows came within a few feet of her. She just sat there looking around as if she were saying “Really? Why do I have to put up with this?”

I had to cut my walk short today as my own brood had a half day of school and were coming home early. But despite my hurried pace and limited amount of time, I tallied 44 species, the most thus far in 2013!

Start time: 8:55

End time: 10:30

Temp: 32-38°

Wind: slight from the north

Skies: overcast

Species Total: 44

  • Great Blue Heron – 2
  • Black Vulture – 5
  • Turkey Vulture – approximately 20
  • Snow Goose – 33
  • Canada Goose – approximately 150
  • American Black Duck – 5
  • Mallard – approximately 50
  • Northern Pintail – 27, Bird of the day!
  • Common Merganser – 2
  • Red-tailed Hawk – 4, 2 adults, 2 immature
  • Killdeer – 1, heard only
  • Ring-billed Gull – 2
  • Herring Gull – 1
  • Rock Dove – approximately 12
  • Mourning Dove – 2
  • Great Horned Owl – 1
  • Belted Kingfisher – 1
  • Red-bellied Woodpecker – approximately 5
  • Downy Woodpecker – 2
  • Hairy Woodpecker – 1
  • Northern Flicker – 1
  • Pileated Woodpecker – 1
  • Blue Jay – approximately 10
  • American Crow – approximately 150
  • Fish Crow – 1
  • Carolina Chickadee – approximately 5
  • Tufted Titmouse – approximately 5
  • White-breasted Nuthatch – approximately 5
  • Carolina Wren – approximately 10
  • Eastern Bluebird – approximately 20
  • American Robin – 3
  • Northern Mockingbird – 2
  • European Starling – approximately 60
  • Eastern Towhee – 2, heard only
  • American Tree Sparrow – 3
  • Song Sparrow – approximately 30
  • Swamp Sparrow – 1
  • White-throated Sparrow – approximately 15
  • Dark-eyed Junco – 2
  • Northern Cardinal – approximately 10
  • Red-winged Blackbird – approximately 100
  • Common Grackle – 3
  • House Finch – 6
  • American Goldfinch – approximately 10