At the confluence of the Lehigh and the Delaware, I saw 7 Common Mergansers, 3 Ring-necked Ducks, and a distant Common Goldeneye.
I left there, drove up the Lehigh, parked at Riverview Park, and walked to the Chain Dam. Just below the dam, there were around 350 Ring-billed Gulls with one American Herring Gull among them, plus about 125 Canada Geese. Among the geese, I spotted an aberrant-plumaged goose. It lacked the full white 'chinstrap' of a Canada Goose, had a faint line on its crown, and had some faint white markings on its neck.
There were also a total of 7 Common Mergansers there, five above the dam and two below it.
It was late afternoon, so I decided to drive over to Penn Pump Park and walk the Palmer Bikeway. There has been a pair of Great Horned Owls present in that area for years and they were being reported there again this year. I saw 7 Common Mergansers and a Snow Goose on the adjacent Bushkill Creek. I just happened to meet Amy Opitz and her husband there on the trail. A Golden-crowned Kinglet called and flew across the trail as the pair of Great Horned Owls starting calling back and forth to each other. After some searching, I found the male perched in one of the pines.
His white throat patch would expand and vibrate as he called.
Two other birders showed up and I pointed the male out to them. Soon after, the female flew in and landed closer to us.
She then flew back near the male, landed on a branch in a fairly open area, and continued calling.
That's when I saw something I'd never seen before. The male flew over, landed on her back, and they began copulating! What was even more amazing was that I managed to get some fairly decent photos of it despite them being backlit by the setting sun.
After a few seconds, the male flew off to the right and the female flew a short distance to the left.
As the light continued to fade, I walked back to the car with a big grin on my face, still not believing what I got to see.
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