I'm Stoned, You're Stoned, We're All Stoned For Turnstones

Henslow's Sparrow! The green-faced one is indeed mighty. This was last week at the Volant Strips.

It's no wonder that America has trouble getting health care reformed and sustainable practices in place when people like Dale Neumann are getting to breed. What the fuck was this dude thinking? How do people like this exist? His ancestors were probably burning witches in Salem. Democracies can't function with lunatics like this running amok....indeed, Dale Neumann is the person Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were terrified of, and why we are stuck with the antiquated and ridiculous Electoral College system....but I am beginning to see why it may have been necessary.....but I digress.

So, not to brag, but I have three day weekends. Its awesome. I don't know if I can go back to a five day work week after this....would you? I lurked over to Laurel Hill State Park this morning to sample the delicious Pennsylvania birdlife, and was not dissappointed. It's kind of an awkward time of year to be birding here....most of the breeding birds are wrapping up their reproductive duties and aren't singing very much, so although all the summer locals are still around they're not exactly easy to find. Migration is starting up now also, which will make birding around here interesting since I don't really know where to go to actually find a lot of migrants.....but that's part of the fun, right?



Looking up at the forest canopy at the Powdermill preserve. Cerulean Warblers are known to skulk around up there, but I didn't see any.

Some of my avian buddies that hung out this morning were Hairy, Downy, Pileated and Red-bellied Woodpeckers (not to mention flickers), Red-eyed, White-eyed and Blue-headed Vireos, Great-crested and Acadian Flycatchers, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Winter Wren, Magnolia, Black-throated Green and Blackburnian Warblers, American Redstart, Common Yellowthroat, Purple Finches......

Hey does anyone know how different eastern Warbling Vireos sound from western ones? I heard a bizzarre song this morning that I couldn't track down, and I suspect this was the culprit....

The highlight of the morning was a friendly Blue-headed Vireo that was singing about 8 feet above my head. I haven't seen one in a few years, so I was pretty happy about it.

Tomorrow I might try to get out to my new patch in the Forbes State Forest, which I think has a lot of potential for interesting songbirds I think. It's in good Cerulean Warbler habitat at least. I would love to be blessed by The Blue One.....I heard one in Massachusettes some years ago but not much more came of it.....except for me running screaming and cursing out of the forest because I ran into a tiny bear cub and I knew Momma Bear wasn't going to be happy about it.

Have a positive day!



I think this is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, but I'm not an accomplished butterfly nerd so I don't know for sure. This one was a looker though.



I am guessing that this means something different than my interpretation of it, but hey, you never know.....