Say's Phoebe & Crossbills
Felton, Gary L. (glf1@cdc.gov)
Sun, 11 Jan 1998 14:23:38 -0500
We left West Virginia at 4 a.m. Saturday morning and arrived in
Newville. Pa. shortly after 7 a.m. This gave us time to have breakfast
at Laura's Diner before going to look for the Say's Phoebe. About 8 am
we arrived at the Weaver's farm and within five minutes saw the phoebe
on the microwave tower. We saw the phoebe several other times before we
left. Some other birders beat us there and the plate on one of their
cars said "Brd Chaser". We never found out who these folks were because
they left while we were out chasing the phoebe. Before we left another
one of those notorious chaser/chatters from Md. showed up. Rob Hilton
and I had conversed via email several times but finally got to meet.
My wife and I left and headed for Liberty reservoir in hopes of a repeat
performance from crossbills comparable to last Saturday. We arrived at
the Pine Knob location shortly after 11. A few crossbills had been seen
earlier in the day but it was pretty slow when we arrived so we decided
to try Deer Park road.
We tried there for awhile but didn't see or hear much of anything let
alone crossbills. We decided to try Pine Knob one more time before
heading home. We had been back maybe twenty minutes when I struck up a
conversation with another birder about his Leica scope. About that time
someone yelled that they had White-wings in the top of a bare deciduous
tree. We hurried over and discovered three near the top. After
watching them for a few minutes the crossbills moved from there to a
different tree and into a weedy area just a few feet away directly in
front of us. At one point they were below us, almost on the ground. I
didn't see it but my wife said that she saw them drinking from a small
spring in the weedy area. In addition to several long satisfying looks
at both a male and a female sitting in a bare decidious tree, both
myself and four or five other birders were treated to a male feeding a
female. It appeared that the crossbills were extracting small buds off
of the tree limbs and these were what the male was offering to the
female. After several minutes they eventually moved into some type of
pine and began feeding on cones. We had anticipated going to Conowingo
Dam to look for the Common Gull but the word being circulated was that
it would have been a pointless endeavor. We arrived home exhausted but
very satisfied with the day's events.
Gary & JoAnne Felton
Rowlesburg, WV
GLF1@CDC.GOV