Sullivan County Feathered Frenzy

Rough-legged Hawk

a distant FOS American Kestrel

The Grassland area of the county in Delaware Township gave three species we found no where else. Snow Bunting, Rough-legged Hawk and our first American Kestrel of the year.

Sullivan County Audubon held its annual “Feathered Frenzy” birding contest this weekend. This is a mid-winter bird count that normally takes place on Valentines Day Weekend. You can choose any 24 hour period from Friday to Sunday. You can even do it more than once. At least six teams participated in this years event and it was a great success. I don’t have all the totals at this time, but can tell you how Arlene Borko and I made out. We opted to do the contest on both Saturday and Sunday. You may recall that it snowed all day Saturday. We have had such cabin fever from this harsh winter that we just had to get out. We ended up having a good day. We repeated the event on Sunday, and it was not only better weather, but more active bird wise. We had a combined total of 51 species for the two days, Here is our total list:

Snow Goose
Canada Goose
American Black Duck
Mallard
Redhead
Common Goldeneye
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Bald Eagle
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Rough-legged Hawk
American Kestrel
Turkey
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Blue Jay
American Crow
Common Raven
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Brown Creeper
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Eastern Bluebird
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
Northern Cardinal
Snow Bunting
American Tree Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Brown-headed Cowbird
Red-winged Blackbird
Purple Finch
House Finch
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

The participating teams were: Renee Davis and Marge Gorton, Valerie Freer and Mary Collier, Scott Baldinger, Deb Powell and Lee Hunter, Arlene Borko and John Haas, Ruth Shurskey and Ruth McKeon. The winning team had 47 species on Sunday.