Hi All,

A family illness took me back to my hometown of Bloomsburg, PA (along the Susquehanna River, which was hit with devastating flooding last year) for a short trip. The area around the town is mixed farmland, fallow fields, and deciduous hardwood woodlands with a good assortment of small creeks and runs. I was out the door at the crack of dawn each day and birded for two hours before spending the rest of the day and evening attending to the family matters. The stress relief was great, and it was very nice to see all the different species of birds I took for granted in my pre-birding younger days.

A list of birds seen (in non-taxonomic, non-alphabetic, non-logical sequence, LOL!) - excluding the species which are everyday birds in Seattle and Western WA - follows. With limited time and no local version of Tweeters to help optimize my explorations, I logged only 36 species, but had some good finds. The most unique one was a female LAPLAND LONGSPUR that afforded excellent, close looks - that should have moved on already (although PA did have a very cold, late spring with only a few of the trees having just started to bud). This bird was found in an open, young Christmas tree farm field that also featured several beautiful male CHIPPING SPARROWS singing on the small trees. Another highlight was a singing BROWN THRASHER at the top of a hedgerow tree displaying a very wide breadth of vocal renditions delivered at impressive volume. This bird later flew right over my head, landed within 30 yards in a hedgerow and proceeded to demonstrate the traits that earned Thrashe!
rs thei
r name.

Raptors were fairly low in number and variety, perhaps a commentary on the difficult winter. Four RED-TAILED HAWKS, one AMERICAN KESTREL and one Accipiter spp. (a flyover, probably a Cooper's Hawk) was it.

Most ducks had already migrated through. Only MALLARD and WOOD DUCK, both of which breed in that area, were seen.

Also, I was too early for the Warbler migration in that area - they were disappointingly absent after studying up on the plethora of east-coast-specific species on the plane ride across the country.

Excluding the Western Washington everyday birds, the list is:

MOURNING DOVE (everywhere in large numbers - including one pair nesting in a hedge within twenty feet of the back door of my sister's house)
TURKEY VULTURE (in large numbers by NW standards - seemed like there were several visible in the sky at almost any point I looked up)
WILD TURKEY (four seen, all females - apparently the gobblers know that hunting season is right around the corner - Wild Turkey have made a huge comeback in PA, to the point where they barely turn heads. I found turkey tracks along a creek within 20 yards of houses in my sister's neighborhood.)
COMMON GRACKLE - about as numerous as mosquitoes in the Cascades at their worst
NORTHERN CARDINAL
BLUE JAY
TUFTED TITMOUSE
NORTHERN FLICKER (as common as W WA, but all Yellow-Shafted subspecies, of course)
EASTERN PHOEBE
EASTERN BLUEBIRD (pleasantly numerous - lots of bluebird nest boxes around on the local farms, though no extensive bluebird trails such as found along Umtanum Road)
EASTERN KINGBIRD
NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD
BROWN THRASHER
CHIPPING SPARROW
EASTERN MEADOWLARK (not nearly the vocal equal of the Western Meadowlark)
RING-NECKED PHEASANT
EASTERN TOWHEE
LAPLAND LONGSPUR

No photos from this trip - the camera gear stayed home this time.

John Tubbs
Snoqualmie, WA
johntubbs at comcast.net
www.tubbsphoto.com