Kirtland's Warbler in PA! ~ September 26, 2024

On Tuesday the 24th, banders at the Powdermill Avian Research Center discovered a first-year female Kirtland's Warbler in one of their mist nets! They put out a message stating that it was only the 2nd-ever record for the center's 63-year history! The first bird was banded back in September of 1971. The worker there told us that they band an average of 9-10,000 birds each year, so do the math and you can see how unusual this bird is. Kirtland's Warblers were once an endangered species, dropping to a low of only 167 singing males in the 1980's. Thanks to the efforts of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Kirtland's has rebounded to around 2,300 breeding pairs today and was delisted as an endangered species in 2019.

Jason Horn called me and asked if I wanted to go along with him to try for it on Wednesday, but I had an extremely ill-timed appointment and wasn't able to go. As it turned out, Jason, along with Steve Schmit and Ross Gallardy, refound the bird on Wednesday around noon. Very late on Wednesday night, I decided to try for it on Thursday. I left the house at 4:30 AM and began the 4-1/2 hour drive to Powdermill.

I got there a little after 9:00 and met up with Eric Witmer, an old friend from my Hawk Mountain days back in the 1970's. We walked down to see if we could find out about whether we would be able to get access to the area before the banding ended around noon and stopped where there was a "Do Not Enter" sign. Luckily, a lady down by the processing building saw us and walked up to talk with us. She said that we would be able to go down to the building as long as we stayed on the road. That got us close enough to view the treeline at the spot where it was seen on Wednesday, but since the bird had been seen low in the vegetation most of the time, our chances of seeing it from there were not good. There, we met Warren and Nina Wolf, Nicholas and Laura Minnich, and Carl Engstrom. Soon after, a worker came out to talk with us and told us that he would escort us in to "the spot". We were thrilled at the chance to get in there. After giving us specific boundaries around the area where we couldn't go because of the ongoing banding, we thanked him, spread out, and started our watch of the brush along the treeline, which was behind the metal frame of an old greenhouse.

We were seeing Common Yellowthroat, Gray Catbird, and Song Sparrow, and I found a Swainson's Thrush there, but there was no sign of the Kirtland's. After a little over an hour, Nina Wolf spotted a bird back in the brush that was wagging its tail. Eric and I got on the bird and realized that it WAS the Kirtland's Warbler! I got some crappy photos of it before it dropped back down into the thicker vegetation.

A while later, Carl refound the bird in the same bush from the other side of the greenhouse. This time, we got longer and better looks at it and I was able to get some fairly good photos, too!

The Kirtland's Warbler. Note the band on its left leg.

Kirtland's Warbler

It was seen in roughly twenty-minute intervals over the next hour. It would have been my 400th bird for Pennsylvania, but the sad truth was that it was the 399th because of the recent axing of Hoary Redpoll as a species by the American Ornithological Society. Hopefully, I will be able to see my 400th before I kick the bucket.

Since I hadn't gotten much sleep, after getting numerous good looks and some acceptable photos, I decided to leave so I could get back home before dark. I got home around 6:00 PM. The trip covered a little over 500 miles.

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