A Peregrine Falcon perches below the talons of the Berks County Courthouse eagle during the Reading Christmas Bird Count Dec. 20.
My pandemic-induced city of Reading Bird Count got off to a late start on Feb. 23, but I did manage to find 117 species within the Reading city limits.
In May, I wrote an article that explored the start of the count: https://www.bctv.org/2020/05/27/city-of-reading-count-reveals-diverse-bird-life/.
Below are some highlights of the year followed by the complete list.
Old Faithful: Peregrine Falcon. The pair returned to downtown Reading and nested for the 14th straight season. Four eggs yielded three young, and at least two survived fledging.
Hardest Easy Bird: Northern Mockingbird. I scoured the city of Reading for months looking for a Mockingbird and finally found one singing on a pole near George Field on June 19.
Easiest Hard Bird: Black-billed Cuckoo. Usually a very secretive bird more often heard than seen, a Black-billed Cuckoo flew to a close branch above the Bridal Path Trial below the Pagoda and sat for several minutes, giving me my best view of this species.
With a Little Help from My Friends Part 1: Least Flycatcher. Peter and Jane Wolfe are the good-luck charms. I ran into them on Duryea Drive as they were out pursuing their county list, and Jane picked out the che-bek! call of this flycatcher from a chorus of other birdsong along a power line cut.
With a Little Help from My Friends Part 2: Rose-breasted Grosbeak. I didn’t have a backyard feeder running in the spring, where so many of these birds were sighted throughout the county, so finding this migratory bird out in the woods was a bit of a challenge until Mike Slater and Linda Ingram found one for me near Drenkel Field on May 11.
Look Up! I knew that to get Snow Geese on my count that I would have to look up at the right time to see them flying overhead. I looked up on Feb. 23 for my only sighting of this species.
I’ll Be Darned: Wild Turkey. I didn’t expect to hear the gobble and then see one off a trail near Drenkel Field although Wild Turkeys have been spotted on Mount Penn periodically over the years.
Fowl Surprises: Bufflehead and Wood Duck. Waterfowl will always be an iffy proposition in Reading since the Schuylkill is the only place to find these species. I was surprised to find a pair of Bufflehead ducks on the river and at least seven pairs, a rather large number, of Wood Ducks during the spring on the stretch between the Penn Street and Buttonwood Street bridges.
You Can Leave Now: Scarlet Tanager. Usually this bird is more often heard than seen, and when it is seen it’s high in the treetops hiding in the leafy canopy. But on one day in spring while looking for a Mockingbird in Nanny Goat Hill, I saw a Scarlet Tanager perched on a tombstone for an extraordinarily long time. After taking in a close view that filled my binoculars with this spectacular bird, I finally had to walk away and leave it.
Better Late Than Never: American Kestrel. I finally found a Kestrel Dec. 30 at the end of South Ninth Street, giving me all three falcons for the city: Peregrine, Merlin and American Kestrel.
Last But Not Least: Tree Sparrow. I found a Tree Sparrow on the last day of the year at Angelica Creek Park. It’s noteworthy that the Tree Sparrow is one of only three birds that have been found on all of the Reading Christmas Bird Counts since the first in 1911 along with the Common Crow and the Dark-eyed Junco. The numbers of this bird wintering in Berks have diminished in the last few decades with fewer than a handful recorded on recent counts.
Better Luck Next Year: Any number of birds that I missed this year but should have found like Golden-crowned Kinglet, Herring Gull, Great Horned Owl and all the migrating warblers I was incapable of identifying.
Pied-billed Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Green-backed Heron
Snow Goose
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
American Black Duck
Mallard
Ring-necked Duck
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Merlin
Peregrine Falcon
Wild Turkey
Killdeer
Solitary Sandpiper
Spotted Sandpiper
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Black-billed Cuckoo
Eastern Screech Owl
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Eastern Wood Pewee
Least Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Blue Jay
American Crow
Fish Crow
Common Raven
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Winter Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Eastern Bluebird
Veery
Swainson’s Thrush
Hermit Thrush
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
White-eyed Vireo
Blue-headed Vireo
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Northern Parula
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Palm Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Worm-eating Warbler
Ovenbird
Louisiana Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Hooded Warbler
Canada Warbler
Scarlet Tanager
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Rufous-sided Towhee
American Tree Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Rusty Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
Purple Finch
House Finch
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow
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