PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS IETY F OC O S R O A I R N N A I T V H Volume 23, No. 3 L O Y S L Jun - Jul 2009 O N G N Y E Issued December 2009 P Seasonal Editors PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS Daniel Brauning Journal of the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology Michael Fialkovich Greg Grove Volume 23 Number 3 June - July 2009 Deuane Hoffman Geoff Malosh, Editor-in-chief 450 Amherst Avenue Department Editors Moon Township, PA 15108-2654 Book Reviews (412) 735-3128 [email protected] Gene Wilhelm, Ph.D. http://www.pabirds.org 513 Kelly Blvd. Slippery Rock, PA 16057-1145 (724) 794-2434 [email protected] CBC Report Nick Bolgiano 711 W. Foster Ave. State College, PA 16801 Contents (814) 234-2746 [email protected] 141 Editorial Hawk Watch Reports 143 Status and distribution of Lesser Black-backed Gull Laurie Goodrich Keith Bildstein (Larus fuscus) in Pennsylvania. Cameron Rutt 410 Summer Valley Rd. 148 Book Review....................................... Gene Wilhelm Orwigsburg, PA 17961 (570) 943-3411 Eastern Pennsylvania Birding and Wildlife Guide [email protected] [email protected] 149 Prolonged incubation of a hybrid-zone chickadee nest .. W.P. Brown, M.E. Zeufle, T.J. Underwood PAMC Bill Etter 151 Summary of the Season. ............................ Dan Brauning P.O. Box 169 152 Birds of Note: June through July 2009 East Texas, PA 18046 (215) 964-3613 154 Photographic Highlights [email protected] 158 Photo-Quiz #25 Answer............................... Rick Wiltraut Pennsylvania Birdlists 159 Local Notes Peter Robinson Photo-Quiz #26.................................. Inside back cover P. O. Box 482 Hanover, PA 17331 [email protected] Photo-Quiz Rick Wiltraut Jacobsburg EE Center 835 Jacobsburg Road Wind Gap, PA 18091 Data Technician Wendy Jo Shemansky 41 Walkertown Hill Rd. Daisytown, PA 15427 [email protected] Publication Manager Franklin Haas 2469 Hammertown Rd. Narvon, PA 17555 [email protected] Cover: Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum). This bird was found taking advantage of grasses around a new housing development in Northampton, an all too familiar–and short-lived–habitat type in Pennsylvania. 13 June 2009. (Dustin Welch) ... from the Editor A Word on Field Guides Then in 1983, National Geographic seminal The Sibley Guide to the Birds, made a grandiose assault on the age- a book that is truly one of a kind and I'd like to take this opportunity, if I old duopoly, and published the first of perhaps the greatest Peterson-style may, to gripe about field guides. So what became five editions (and reference to the birds of North America many things have undergone an counting) of their highly successful ever published; however do note that exponential expansion in scope and Field Guide to the Birds of North Sibley's tome isn't a field guide in the market saturation in recent years— America. National Geographic truest sense, since it's too big to carry everything from the pervasiveness of combined all the best features of its two into the field without a forklift. And the the cell phone to the incomprehensible primary predecessors, and showed that two east-west Sibley guides, each popularity of televised poker success could be had in this market truncated in scope and depth compared championships. For decades, two outside of the Peterson and Golden to the original, are each, well, just a brands of baseball cards occupied a brand names. In the same year, the little better than being just another market that is now littered with dozens Audubon Society published their three- field guide too.) of offerings. What used to be a televised volume, photo-oriented Master Guide to So this begs the question, where half-hour nightly review of the day’s Birding series, which they billed as does the "industry" go from here? events has become a dozen cable news “the first field guide to North American Maybe it goes nowhere. And maybe networks, full of overstuffed and birds specifically designed to satisfy the that's OK. Maybe the science has been overexposed screaming heads beamed interests of the serious birder”. (Each of solved, and there is nothing more to across the solar system 24 hours every the three volumes sits on my bookshelf explore in a field guide. day. still today, trophies of an audacious But I think there is more. How Now it seems that field guides to eight-year-old billing himself as a many times, despite all the wonderful the birds of North America are no serious birder.) Suddenly, the race was picture books on the market today, do exception either, and a new offering on. Today, one can walk into any main- even the most experienced birders from yet another source is served up on stream national-chain bookseller and come away from a field encounter the shelves of bookstores across the browse their choice of a dozen different totally befuddled by the feathered country every year. Every birder knows field guides to the birds of North creature they just witnessed? How the story of Roger Tory Peterson and America. Online shoppers can double often is there simply no match to what his famous A Field Guide to the Birds, that count of choices with a few clicks was just seen to be found anywhere in and how Peterson with that book pretty at amazon.com. Even field guides with any of the stacks of field guides? It much single-handedly created what we the scope of one state, province, or happens every day, of course. call "birding" today. Peterson is region began to spring up across the So try this idea on for size: The considered a legend, revered in birding continent. Field Guide to the Unidentifiable Birds circles, and justifiably so. That was But while all these new field of North America. 1934… and so it was for the next 50 guides have hit the market, the scope Yes, I'm serious. years: birding in North America was of Peterson’s original blueprint has Peterson was revolutionary, of that done with a Peterson in hand. Sure, changed very little. Most field guides of there is no doubt. Peterson opened the there were eventually other successful today are nothing more than dressed eyes of entire generations to the field guides, most notably the Golden up Golden Guides, if the truth is to be wonderment of the lives of birds in Guide, which made its debut in 1949 put bluntly. On balance, the artwork is ways that had never been imagined and eventually found its niche by better these days (or at least more before. But he did it with a volume catering to a more serious audience accurate), and the text is perhaps more which at least implied that every bird than it originally sought, and by concise. But at its foundation, every could be identified if only enough field countering the split east-west Peterson field guide clings to a few basic marks could be found. Small bird + Guides with a single volume covering guidelines: to show as many birds and bright wing bar + stout bill + olive all of North America. It wasn't exactly as much information as possible in as upperparts + weak eyeline + broken revolutionary, but it did take its place small and lightweight a format as is eye ring = Bell's Vireo. Every bird had next to Peterson on every birder's practical, without sacrificing usability. its own formula, every individual had a bookshelf. Two major guides—that’s There are dozens of field guides now on solution. Peterson is a legend, but that all—and life was simple in those days, the market, and each of them takes way of thinking—that every bird could if a bit quirky. Peterson had an odd this same approach. Ironically, none of be solved in such a manner—is habit of painting only the heads of them brings anything new to the table becoming passé. Of course even today, some species, and the Golden Guide (at at all other than a different set of Peterson's field-mark approach is the least the two I owned) had a curious photographs or watercolors. For my basis for every successful identification. way of falling completely apart at the part, I greet each new field guide I see It is subconscious rote for every birder seams, but together, they had all the on the shelves anymore with a yawn. of every skill level, and it works too... answers birders were looking for. (Here I make an exception for the except when it doesn't. It is this very PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS (ISSN 0898-8501) is published four times a year by The Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology. Editorial and business offices are located at 2469 Hammertown Road, Narvon, PA 17555-9730. Subscriptions, all in US$: One year U.S.A $28.50, Canada $40, Foreign $45. Library rate $30. Single copies: $5.50. Checks and money orders in U.S. dollars only should be made payable to PSO. Copyright © 2009 by The Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology. SECOND CLASS POSTAGE PAID AT NARVON, PA 17555. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to PSO, 2469 Hammertown Road, Narvon, PA 17555-9726. PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS 141 2009 – VOLUME 23 NO. 3 idea, that sometimes there just isn't a There are quite enough field guides Finally, Greg Grove has taken formula available to explain what is already on the market that show crisp over as Huntingdon compiler (replacing being seen, that Peterson's followers pictures of for-sure Common Redpolls the outgoing Doug Wentzel), and Dan (i.e. all of us birders) sometimes have a and for-sure Hoary Redpolls, so Brauning, who also serves as summer very hard time coming to grips with.