A Big Surprise at Little Gap and the Nazareth Quarry ~ November 3, 2024

I hiked up to Little Gap. Mike and Corrine Schall showed up a little while later. The clear blue sky made it tough to find migrants, but there was a fair movement of raptors passing by. At 12:48, a bird circled up from the gap and headed towards us. It was a Short-eared Owl! It flew close by on the north side, circled up a bit, and then continued on down the ridge. We all got nice photos of this sharp-looking owl.

Short-eared Owl

I counted 9 Red-shouldered Hawks, most of them nicely-colored adults.

Adult Red-shouldered Hawks

Also noted there were 6 Bald Eagles, 14 Red-tailed Hawks, 3 Common Ravens, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 3 Eastern Bluebirds, 56 American Robins, 2 Purple Finches, and 17 birds that were either Horned Larks or American Pipits.

The other big topic of the day was the forest fire that was burning on the south side of the mountain just east of Lehigh Gap. I took this photo looking west from the hawkwatch of the smoke.

The forest fire east of Lehigh Gap.

When I got to the bottom of the mountain, I stopped at a vantage point west of Danielsville and took this photo of the fire. The dark spot above the flames near the top of the mountain is a helicopter dropping water on them.

The forest fire east of Lehigh Gap.

From there, I drove down to the Nazareth Quarry. Mike and Corrine joined me there. We saw a huge group of Lesser Black-backed Gulls taking up a good section of the quarry with some Herring and Ring-billed Gulls in among them. I took these four photos from left to right.

A massive group of Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

When I got home, I painstakingly counted the birds in the four photos and came up with 1,138 Lessers the first round and 1,144 the second time! I entered the smaller number of 1,138 on the checklist.

I didn't have my scope with me, but I picked out the following with binoculars: 30 Ruddy Ducks, 8 American Coots, 8 American Black Ducks, 6 Buffleheads, a Common Merganser, and a Pied-billed Grebe, all among around 3,000 Canada Geese.

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