Miscellaneous birding stuff from October 2008

Well, I'm so far behind on blogging that I might as well back track to last fall. Here are some pictures from a couple of birding excursions.


The first was via kayak. Steve and I enjoyed birding on Alum Creek reservoir and up into the creek as the shorebird migration was underway.

Here's a Lesser Yellowlegs. The neat thing about birding by kayak is that the birds aren't nearly as skittish. You can quietly approach them by floating the boat and then grounding on a mud flat.






Stilt sandpiper













Ring-billed gull












Steve, stuck in the mud. That's the drawback about birding by kayak in the late fall. The water levels are very low and you can ground your kayak without too much effort.






The other birding excursion was a Columbus Audubon trip to Hawk Mountain in eastern Pennsylvania. About 20 of us rented two chalets and had a wonderful weekend of birding and fellowship.

We were fortunate enough to be given a tour of the Acopian center, which is a raptor research center.







This is a picture of Sarkis Acopian - a wealthy man who was very interested in raptors. He donated the money to build the center.












The main attraction was Hawk Mountain - a place where you can observe the migration of raptors moving north to south. You sit up on a ridge and watch them fly by either at eye level, just above, or slightly below. It was a spectacular sight - we saw dozens of sharp-shinned hawks, Cooper's hawks, red-tailed, broad-winged, etc.







The scenery is pretty nice, too. It was very enjoyable to sit there and watch the hawks fly by.










That's an owl decoy on top of the pole. Hawks sometimes will attack it from a dive.










It was a gorgeous day to be out on the mountain.










This spot is where hunters used to shoot the raptors by the hundreds before the place was turned into a conservation center.









Near the chalets, there was a flock of about 20 turkeys out and about.