Getting it in at Kaskey Park / UPenn Biopond

My lunchtime birding patch is the UPenn Biopond, or Kaskey Park. It’s perfectly snack-sized. I can make the rounds twice in an hour. I usually grab something on the go, cram it in my face on foot, and have free hands to handle my binoculars by the time I get there.

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The birding is let’s say… not spectacular. But during migration it’s worth a quickie – it doesn’t have to rock your world, but it gets you through the day ;-)

In the past, I’ve had various thrushes, ovenbird, magnolia warbler, black and white warbler, and this year I’ve had a common yellowthroat, a brown thrasher, and another hermit thrush. Still no ovenbird, but any day now…

Birding around town: river views

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A few new spots on the map for Birding Philly this beautiful, early spring, all with river views.

Pennypack on the Delaware
Visited: Early March

The good:
* Nesting bald eagles
* Confluence of Pennypack Creek and the Delaware River
* Varied habitat

The bad:
* Weekends are loud. Sports fields and a shooting range. LOUD.

Best bird? Killdeer.

Birding with an Android

We’re used to it. There’s an app for that — but not for Android. I suspect the gap is going to close now that Google’s platform occupies over half of the market. For the moment, the paucity of birding app options in the Market remains the case — but I’m crafty, and I’ve got some moves.

iPhone app stars BirdsEye and BirdJam are not available. This is how I do it instead.

[UPDATE: Audubon Birds has added eBird-based bird-finding functionality to their app for Android since this article was originally posted.]

Bird-finding without BirdsEye: Chrome to Phone.

No need to find yourself outside, stubbornly pecking away at the tiny, mouse-designed buttons and forms in eBird. Not with Chrome to Phone.

Install the plugin to your desktop’s Chrome browser, then install the app on your Droid from the Market. Both require your Google account information and a few seconds to set up. Both are free.

Zen and the digital birder

I knew it the day I went back to delete sanderling from every back-bay eBird checklist. I was on the road to being a better birder, and lo, it was good.

Rewind to a year or so ago. I hit a wall with my birding. Or, uhm, “birding.” It was more like tramping around in nature, largely solo, and very happily – but pretty haphazardly. I couldn’t tell a Song from a Savanna but I knew an Ipswich in an instant. I made no sense.

Please excuse my dust

While I futz with the blog layout and such.

Birding with a side of history: Pawling Farm, Valley Forge NHP

One of the side benefits of birding around Philly is that something happened everywhere.

Pawling Farm (or Walnut Hill, take your pick) is no exception. Occupied by three different families from the early 1700s through the mid 1980s, it has its fair share of stories. Many types of people would enjoy a visit – architecture buffs, Revolutionary history buffs, Pennsylvania coal history buffs, shutterbugs, birders, hikers, children – you name it, there’s a reason to like this place.

While it’s part of the very ballyhooed Valley Forge National Historic Park, and while it’s easily accessible by the Schuylkill River Trail, it remains a bit off the beaten track.

Even I have to confess: I grew up across the river from this place, ranging the main section of the Park as a kid, but I never knew Pawling Farm existed until November.

Why visit? Let me count the ways.

Adding a legend to the location life list: Brigantine

eBird here.
Photos here.

My first visit to Brigantine was long overdue. It’s only an hour or so from Philly, it’s legendary in birding land, and frankly, other birders give me the hairy eyeball when I say I haven’t been there yet. This fall I also promised myself I’d stretch out regionally. New habitats offer new lessons, and one could certainly do worse than Brigantine.

Brigantine, as seen from space. Thanks, Google.

Brig also made the list because this is a plum place to study ducks on the water, a glaring weakness in my skillset. I think I’ve been resistant to waterfowl (yes, I just described myself as “resistant to waterfowl”) because I don’t have a scope, but with some encouragement from other birders and a few days off, I found myself at Forsythe NWR/Brigantine at the crack of dawn on a day with rain threatening the afternoon forecast.

I chose to hike the 8 mile auto loop on foot to really breathe in the place, and to work off all those holiday desserts and drinks in the process. Body and soul needed a stretch, so off I went.