Prairie Falcon near Newburg, Cumberland County ~ November 28, 2010

Jason Horn, Stephen Kloiber, and I made a very successful run Sunday for some noteworthy birds. We headed for Cumberland County and were lucky enough to drive up and find the Prairie Falcon in one of the large trees just northwest of the intersection of Duncan and Mud Level Roads. I managed to get this horrible, long-distance photo of the falcon.

Prairie Falcon near Newburg, Cumberland County. You can barely make out the whisker mark and dark sides on this pale brown bird.

It was perched there from 8:50 to about 9:05 AM when it winged east along Mud Level Road until it was out of sight over the little substation area. If accepted, this would be the first record for Pennsylvania.

At the substation, we found a Merlin ripping apart an unfortunate Horned Lark on a nearby pole and a good number of White-crowned Sparrows directly across from there on the north side of the road.

Merlin near Newburg, Cumberland County with an unlucky Horned Lark in its talons.

After about an hour of being unable to refind the Prairie, we headed for Shartlesville to get another look, and maybe some photos, of the Anna's Hummingbird, another first for Pennsylvania! There, after a short wait, the Anna's buzzed into a crabapple tree across from trailer M-69 and then eventually over to the feeder there. To get the background story on the Anna's and see the photos I was lucky enough to get of it, continue on to the next entry.

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