Waggoner’s Gap

On the way home from State College, we stopped at Waggoner’s Gap – a place known for being an excellent place to watch the fall hawk migration will thousands of birds migrating overhead between mid-August and December. We’d heard about it from some birding friends and decided to see what it was like even though the viewing was not optimal with low lying clouds overhead. We decided this would just be a reconnoiter type stop and we’d come back on a day when the weather was better. It was scenic drive through central Pennsylvania countryside west of Harrisburg to the small lot for the site.

There were clear maps of the trails up to the viewing area and ridge at the beginning of the trail and trail junctions.

The trail was over rocks and was marked by bird stencils. Do you see the orange stenciled bird in the  pictures? It did make it easier to pay attention to not tripping over rocks to have the markings at your feet rather than at eye level on trees.

At the top – there is a few of the colorful forest below and the valley beyond. Next time we’ll pick a day with fewer clouds, pack everything in a backpack rather than having anything in our hands (the hike is not hard but is over rocks, better to have both hands free) and plan to stay longer. I’d like to refine my skills at identifying raptors in flight!

Blue Jays on the Move

Our neighborhood has a troupe of resident blue jays that make their rounds – most days – through our backyard for the bird bath and swooping off to the maple and then the taller tulip poplars at the edge of the forest. Sometimes they stop to look through our gutters for bugs in the leaf debris. The picture below is one on our deck railing after he got his drink of water. That is the small part of the route that they are easy to see; some of the time I miss seeing them completely but I always hear them.

This time of year the numbers of blue jays are much higher because so many of them are migrating through Maryland to go further south for the winter. I’ve often wondered whether the resident ones ‘talk’ to the transient birds because it seems like we have more blue jays around than we have during the rest of the year.

While I was raking leaves on Wednesday (the first round of the chore for this year!), a flock of blue jays chattered (or is it more like arguing) in the trees above.