15 February 2025
Welcome to Day Two of the Nice Yard Hen Depend (GBBC). I’m staying indoors whereas it snows and rains a lot that …
FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 AM EST THIS MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING...Flooding brought on by extreme rainfall continues to be doable.— Nationwide Climate Service forecast for Pittsburgh PA 15 Feb 2025
Gull: Since a lot of the rain will fall south of right here the Monongahela River will rise once more. It was falling final Tuesday once I photographed one of many many ring-billed gulls at Duck Hole. This one gave the impression to be asking, “Do you have got meals for me?” Somebody had left birdseed on the trash can cowl.
4 Merlins: Yesterday I went to the Bob O’Connor Golf Course at Schenley Park half an hour earlier than sundown to see if I may discover the 2 merlins who normally dangle on the market. As quickly as I arrived one flew in and landed on the best pine within the Palmer Loop Observe Space north of Schenley Drive.
Quickly a second merlin landed on high of the tallest tree, a naked tree between holes 8 and 9. I walked an enormous circle to verify for songbirds and noticed the primary merlin in an intense chase with a 3rd. On my manner again to the automotive I discovered a fourth(!) and was in a position to stand in a single spot and see all 4 merlins on the identical time.
4 is uncommon however I bear in mind a time, maybe within the late Nineties, when Invoice Hintze first discovered merlins on the golf course. In these days there have been typically as many as 4.
60 Ft into Ohio: On Monday 10 Feb 4 of us went birding on the Stavich Bike Path in Lawrence County PA to do a Winter Survey for the Third PA Breeding Hen Atlas. We had been prepared to go again to the automotive once I realized we had been solely a half mile from Ohio. So we stored going, crossed the state line and walked 60 toes into Ohio.
Ta dah! Right here we’re simply inside Pennsylvania. Finest Hen: a white-crowned sparrow.
Bonus Image — nice horned owlet: Right here’s one other owlet child image from Tues 11 Feb. The white fluff in entrance of the mom owl is the owlet’s head going through left with its eyes closed.
