Weekly Bird Report, April 7 - 13, 2014

I want to thank everyone who is sending me bird reports while Jerry is away. You are terrific! thanks.
Take note below Linda reports a Male Baltimore Oriole so get your feeders cleaned and ready.
If you have anything to report just email me at webeditor@presqueisleaudubon.org
Enjoy,
Toni

Great Egret by Kristin Sanderson taken at State Game Lands 277. © the photographer

Reported by Kristin Sanderson
April 6th, at Presque Isle

• 40 Double Crested Cormorants flying through the channel in about a 10 minute period that I was there. 
  
• 2 American Wigeons (1M 1F) in the bay of the little beach down from the lighthouse on the pier. 
  
• 2 Bonaparte's Gulls.  
  
• I  also saw my first Hermit Thrush and Easter Phoebe of the year on the Dead Pond Trail. 
  
• 2 Bald Eagles soaring about I-79 as well.  I also saw a Common Loon on Edinboro University's campus pond yesterday evening as well.
  

April 12th at the State Game Lands 277

• Tree swallows are back! I saw about 10+ of those,
  
• 3 rusty blackbirds,
  
• 10 Blue-winged Teals,
  
• 3 Northern Shovelers (2M 1F)
  
• and wait for it…. A GREAT EGRET! 
  

Upland Sandpiper by Larry Burlingame, Taken in Waterford on April 12th. © the photographer

And thanks also to Jerry's wife Linda for sending the following.
Happy spring! April is becoming a busy month of migration, courtship, and blooming.

• Purple martins are back from Brazil.
• There's at least one, maybe two, pairs of Cooper's hawks courting and nesting on PI.
• American wigeon
• 10 blue-winged teal
• A male oriole
• Barn swallow
• Swamp sparrow
• Savannah sparrow
• Northern mockingbird
• Hermit thrush
• Rusty blackbirds
• Eastern towhee
• Common loons, and horned grebes on the bay
• a Red-necked Grebe near Fairview.
  
• Bonaparte’s gull, greater and lesser black-backed gull, Caspian tern, and surf scoter.
  
• Lesser yellowlegs at Gull Point.
  
• For two weeks only, while yellow-bellied sapsuckers are here, it”s possible to find seven woodpecker species.
  

Other Nature notes:
Eastern spotted salamanders in vernal ponds.
Spring peepers, wood frogs, and bullfrogs calling in marshes and ponds.
Woodcock courtship, an extravagant aerial song and dance, in low wet places at dusk.
The first wildflowers have bloomed: coltsfoot, spring beauty, Pennsylvania bittercress and Skunk cabbage.