Trailblazers BSES Birding Club, Fall 2024

The fall session of Trailblazers BSES Birding Club proved to be a healthy mix of nature and fun all in one! This first club season of the school year took place during fall migration. As each week passed, we had the chance of seeing different birds than we did the week before.

Our first two weeks of club brought along some great fall birding! Students were treated to year-round residents of the BSES Nature Trail like the Tufted Titmouse, Eastern Bluebird, House Finch, and Black Vulture. They also got to see some birds that were just arriving to our area in migration; species like the Ruby-crowned Kinglet and White-throated Sparrow.

We also had a great season for woodpeckers! We observed five different species this fall: Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, and a winter specialty, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker!

Our third week of club brought along the most noteworthy observation of the session: We had a flyover Belted Kingfisher! This moment was a quick one, but this kingfisher flew low overhead for all the group to see. This observation represents only the fourth all-time observation of this species on the trail. All previous observations of Belted Kingfisher have been in the fall; two observations in November, and now two observations in October (all of which as flyovers.) Seems like if you want to see a Belted Kingfisher at BSES, your best bet is to look up in fall!

Ethan Kang (www.bearybirding.com) snapped some fantastic photos of the bird as it flew over:

Our fourth week of club took us over to Peanut Pond, a piece of private property nearby the BSES Nature Trail. With the drought conditions from a rainless October, Peanut Pond looked more like a Peanut Puddle. That didn't stop us from enjoying great birding! Fourth grade student Ashé pointed out an absolutely stunning Great Blue Heron that was patrolling the edge of the mostly muddy pond. We also were treated to a pair of White-tailed Deer (a doe and a buck with a large rack!)

Our final week of club brought along some more interesting observations! As we did our final walk to the bird feeders out front, we observed a female Cooper's Hawk chasing after European Starlings around the baseball field. The hawk even perched on the bleachers and backstop for great views!

We also had a rather unusual observation: a suspected hybrid Carolina x Black-capped Chickadee! The nominate chickadee species in our region of Pennsylvania is the Carolina Chickadee. If you go about an hour north, the nominate species turns into Black-capped Chickadee (and their range extends throughout New England and into Canada.) Black-capped Chickadees can occur in our part of the state, but they are incredibly difficult to differentiate from Carolina Chickadee. The bird we observed coming to one of the feeders exhibited a few key traits of Black-capped Chickadee but not all. As a result, we identified this bird as a Carolina/Black-capped Chickadee on eBird (meaning it could not be positively identified as either species.) We also didn't identify it as a hybrid Carolina x Black-capped Chickadee since that was above our pay grade!

Over our five weeks together, we identified a total of 37 different species of birds (which is the exact same species total as the fall Trailblazers club in 2023!) Thank you to James and Ethan, our GVHS Trailblazers Guides, for all their help with this club season. Also, thank you to BSES for their continued support of Trailblazers! We are looking forward to an amazing winter and spring club seasons in 2025!

For specifics of our bird observations, check out our eBird Trip Report for the session!