Martins Creek, Plainfield Township, and the Nazareth Quarry ~ February 27, 2026

I went to the Martins Creek PPL power plant area. A single Horned Lark was apparently by itself along the road. The basin held 2 "Blue" Geese, 11 Redheads, 2 Greater Scaup, and a Ruddy Duck among around a hundred Ring-necked Ducks, 40 Buffleheads, and roughly 150 Canada Geese. Two Bald Eagles, a Red-tailed Hawk, and an American Kestrel were seen in the air. A Peregrine Falcon was seen perched on a steel arm of one of the smokestacks. I took this terrible documentation photo of it.

Peregrine Falcon

I then drove over to the Knitters Hill section of the Plainfield Township Recreation Trail. There were 2 Red-tailed Hawks on a pole. One of them was ripping apart its prey.

A Red-tailed Hawk with prey.

Also seen there were 2 Red-bellied Woodpeckers, a Downy Woodpecker, 3 Blue Jays, 2 Tufted Titmice, a White-breasted Nuthatch, 2 Carolina Wrens, 2 American Robins, a Field Sparrow, 5 White-throated Sparrows, 4 Song Sparrows, 2 Northern Cardinals, and a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

The Nazareth Quarry was my last stop. Snow Geese were filling a good portion of the quarry. There were at least 20,000 birds there. Paul Nale showed up and he happened to come across a Ross's Goose among the masses. The same 3 White-winged Scoters seen the other day were present again today along with the Long-tailed Duck, which was way out in the middle of the quarry.

White-winged Scoters

The continuing female Long-tailed Duck.

When the majority of the Snows took off, it exposed the several Greater Scaup that were fairly close.

Three of the 8 Greater Scaup.

Other notables were 3 Cackling Geese, 6 Northern Shovelers, 2 Gadwall, 4 American Black Ducks, 21 Redheads, a Ring-necked Duck, a Lesser Scaup, 16 Buffleheads, the sporadically-seen Common Goldeneye, 18 Common Mergansers, the female Red-breasted Merganser, around 50 Ruddy Ducks, 14 American Coots, and 2 Pied-billed Grebes, plus 400 Canada Geese. As I was getting into the car, an adult male Northern Harrier flew by and got behind the trees before I could get back out and try for a photo.

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