Harlequin Duck and Kestrel Banding

This morning I headed to Huntingdon, PA to look for the Harlequin Duck that was reported in December. I arrived at the location on the Juniata River around 7:40 am and immediately spotted to male Hooded Mergansers floating down the river. I walked to the other side of the bridge and spotted it. This was a good addition to my big year list and a new bird for my PA list.

Harlequin Duck (Juniata River 1/7/2011)

Harlequin Duck (Juniata River 1/7/2011)

I then met up with Emily Thomas who was banding American Kestrels this week near Huntingdon. Emily banded 4 kestrels yesterday, but we were only lucky enough to catch one that was already banded today. We had several other kestrels come down to the traps, but only sit beside them waiting for the bait to come out of the trap. We caught a female today and below are a few photos of the bird.

As we were searching for more kestrels, we ended up at the Aitch boat launch for Raystown Lake. At the boat launch were around 40 Ring-billed Gulls, Hooded Mergansers, and a Bald Eagle.

On my way back to State College, I decided to drive Nixon Rd. to look for Horned Larks, Snow Buntings, American Pipits, and Lapland Longspurs. I found a flock of 8 Horned Larks and could find no other species in the corn stubble. As I was observing the larks, I heard a Common Raven call from overhead.

Horned Larks (1/7/2011)

At the end of the day, I added 5 new species to my year list and brought my list total to 47.