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PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS Journal of the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology VOLUME 8, NUMBER 3, JUL – SEP 1994 Franklin C. Haas & Barbara M. Haas Editors-in-chief (717) 445-9609 Department Contents Editors 125 Editorial Christmas Counts 126 Letters & Migration Count 128 Discovery of a Blackpoll Warbler Nest. ............... Douglas Gross Alan Gregory 133 First Confirmed Evening Grosbeak Nest in Pa.. .......... Skip Conant PO Box 571 Conyngham, PA 18219 136 2nd Breeding Record of Sandhill Crane for Pa.......... Gene W ilhelm 717-788-1425 137 More Notes on the Sandhill Cranes.................. Nancy Rodgers Hawk Watch Reports 138 Future Breeders in Pa.?. ............................ Dan Brauning Mark Blauer 139 Breeding Dickcissel Behavior. ...................... Gene W ilhelm 240 Pine St. 141 Personality Profile: Alan Brady. ....................... Arlene Koch Nanticoke, PA 18634 717-735-7172 142 Preliminary Checklist of the Birds of Allegheny Co.. ........ Ted Floyd 144 Confirmed Nesting of N. Mockingbird in Lawrence......... Barb Dean Site Guides 144 A Ruddy Turnbark and a Ruddy Rototiller. ..............Rick Wiltraut Rudy Keller RR4, Box 235 145 Conejohela Flats - Habitat in Danger..................... Jerry Book Boyertown, PA 19512 146 The Great Dickcissel Flyway........................... Arlene Koch 610-367-9376 147 Rare Bird Reports. ................................ Nick Pulcinella Personality Profiles Gull-billed Tern, Rufous/Allen's Hummingbird, Laughing Gull Arlene Koch 150 Photographic Highlights 1375 Raubsville Rd. Easton, PA 18042 157 Summary of the Season 610-253-6377 158 Notes From the Field 163 Rare and Unusual Bird Reports Rare Bird Reports Nick Pulcinella 165 County Reports - July through September 1994 Apt 6 201 Elm Ave. 179 Compilers and Observers Swarthmore, PA 19081 610-543-8360 Book Reviews Gene Wilhelm RR 2 Box 2120 Slippery Rock, PA 16057 ILLUSTRATIONS: COVER: Evening Grosbeaks by Randy Miller from the Editors... BACK ON SCHEDULE to December. Please save it for address used, please drop us a note next quarter. and we will mark your record We are making progress in getting Also send Hawk Watch totals appropriately. back on schedule, you should be to Mark Blauer (address on Table receiving this in early January. of Contents page). WILD RESOURCE CONSER- The next issue should be received VATION FUND before the end of March. We thank PSO NEWSLETTER our compilers for getting their For those of you who send reports in on a more timely basis Also getting back on schedule your tax returns in early, don't this issue. We had been lax in is the Pennsylvania Society for forget to check off a donation to enforcing our deadlines, which Ornithology newsletter. The Pennsylvania's Wild Resource added to our tardiness in getting newsletter is used to address Conservation Fund. Although their the last few issues out on time. conservation issues, news of license plates sold like hotcakes meetings, reports about on-going this past year, their beneficiaries CHRISTMAS COUNTS projects, and other organizational (projects for non-game wildlife) can items. If you are not a member of never have enough funding. A reminder to Christmas the PSO, you may be missing out Even if you are not getting a Count compilers: please send a on important issues concerning the refund, you can send an extra copy of your report (a xerox copy of state's avifauna. Consider joining check along made out to the fund. the original forms is preferred) to when you renew your subscription Its easier to remember it now than our CBC compiler, Alan Gregory. this year. later. See address on Table of Contents page. MAILING LISTS Barb & Frank Haas NOTES TO COUNTY Please note that there is a new Chief Editors COMPILERS item on the subscription /membership renewal form. It Remember to send copies of concerns publishing your name on any CBCs in your county to Alan a membership list. This is aimed Gregory, unless you know that the primarily at PSO members so that CBC Compiler is sending it di- a membership list can be published rectly. We prefer copies of the in the newsletter, but we at PB original CBC report forms rather also get requests for mailing lists, than a brief summary, as there is and we do not want to send out the less chance for transcription errors names and addresses of subscribers and we would like to include party who do not wish to have their hours, miles, etc., which are not names and addresses passed on. usually included in summaries. Therefore, if you do not wish Although we want you to send to have your name and/or address your CBCs in regardless of the date published in a membership list or it was held (for inclusion in the mailing list, please mark the statewide CBC report), if your appropriate block on the renewal count was held in January, DO form. NOT include January count data in If you have already renewed your quarterly report for October and do not want your name or PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS (ISSN 0898-8501) is published four times a year by Pennsylvania Birds. Editorial and business offices are located at 2469 Hammertown Road, Narvon, PA 17555-9726. Subscriptions, all in US$: One year U.S.A. $17.50, Canada $30, Foreign $40. Library rate $28. Single copies: $3 (1988 only), $4.50 (89-94). Checks and money orders in U.S.$ only should be made payable to PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS. Copyright © 1994 by Franklin C. Haas and Barbara M. Haas. SECOND CLASS POSTAGE PAID AT NARVON, PA 17555 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS, 2469 Hammertown Road, Narvon, PA 17555-9726. PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS 125 VOLUME 8 NO. 3 LETTERS Dear Editors: flushed while brooding a chick, which nuthatch shaped and sized, dark gray was inadvertently caught between the to blackish with white throat and A few comments on the parent's legs when the bird took off. upper breast and long, slender, slightly September issue of Pennsylvania Palmer (1967. in "The Shorebirds of decurved bill. It creeps around rocks Birds, which arrived here a day or two North America," G. Stout, ed.:248) like a nuthatch but occasionally is seen ago. accepted this explanation. This on trees (and obviously would be where P. 73, left column: no address is skepticism may well be unjustified, there were no rocks). Its call is a loud, given for Alan Gregory, so I couldn't although more observations are clearly ascending whistle rather as you write him directly, but I was a little needed. As mentioned by Randy described, and it typically makes it all startled to see the reference to Root Miller, the European Woodcock is winter long. (1988) as "his" book, as my very good definitely known to carry its young The only major discrepancy is friend Terry Root is a woman. deliberately (for references see Cramp that this species has big red patches on P. 85, Kirtland's Warbler: et al. [eds.], 1983. "Handbook of the its wings, which it flicks regularly, incredibly, Harold Mayfield's account Birds of Europe, the Middle East, and exposing them. I suppose it's possible in The Birds of North America, cited by North Africa," vol. 3:453). Ascribing that in the shade you wouldn't see the Nick Pulcinella, failed to mention one this behavior in the American red, and in the unusual habitat in of the most important papers on this Woodcock to accidental lifting seems which it found itself it might not species: "The fall migration route of far-fetched to me, especially behave normally. Other than this, your Kirtland's Warbler," by Carnegie considering the number of description is a dead ringer for a Museum's own Mary Heimerdinger observations and the fact that other Wallcreeper! Needless to say, this bird Clench (1973, Wilson Bull. 85:417- species than the woodcocks are not has never been reported out of 428). Mary's research was stimulated claimed to carry young when flushed. Eurasia. by the first banding of a Kirtland's Perhaps by now others have given Warbler outside of Michigan, at Kenneth C. Parkes you the same information, or you have Powdermill Nature Reserve, West- Senior Curator of Birds looked in a European field guide. In moreland Co., Pa., 21 September 1971. The Carnegie Museum of any case, I was stimulated enough to Curson's failure to cite the Clench Natural History write you because this would be such a paper is less surprising, as he relied 4400 Forbes Ave. cosmic occurrence. Unfortunately, I heavily on the secondary literature. Pittsburgh, PA 15213 realize there is no way you could P. 90, left column: the first document it any further. And, come to paragraph of the Dickcissel article is We inadvertently forgot Alan think of it, I don't know that this issue ambiguous; Barbara Dean quotes Bob Gregory's address at the end of his wasn't published on April 1st... Mulvihill's article (Pa. Birds 2:83-87) article, but he is listed as the Christmas I'd be curious to know if this had as indicating that certain counties, Counts & Migration Count Editor on occurred to you and if anything further including Allegheny, "had no record of the inside front cover. came of it." Dickcissel." Mulvihill's summary and We believe that Barbara Dean was map were confined to summer records also just referring to breeding or Dennis Paulson of Dickcissel. There is, in fact, an summer records of Dickcissels in her The University of Puget Sound Allegheny County specimen. A first paragraph. 1500 N. Warner neighbor of mine in the Shadyside And, we couldn't agree more with Tacoma, Washington 98416-0360 district of Pittsburgh found a window- your comments regarding woodcocks. killed Dickcissel on 9 October 1987, —eds. Barb Dean replies: which I salvaged for the Carnegie Thank you for your letter Museum of Natural History.