We continue to be delighted with all of the great birding in the numerous state parks, state game lands and the seemingly endless state forests in every direction of the compass from our new home.

My joy in exploring to find all of the good birding spots within reasonable driving distance is still going strong. We’ve found lots of winter raptors, including northern harriers and rough-legged hawks, out to the west in the Woodward area.

Nearby Colyer Lake surprised us with an amazing flock of 233 tundra swans in February and Tussey Mountain is the place for migrating golden eagles in late winter. Sand Mountain on Route 322 is a good spot to look for red crossbills and Mountain Church Road in the Bald Eagle State Forest is our favorite spring spot for singing hermit thrushes.

Cerulean warblers and American redstarts are seemingly everywhere down on the lower trail. Up to the north, Black Moshannon State Park and associated forests and state game lands are always full of birds. Nearby Scotia SGL is our local go-to place in the for golden-winged warblers, American woodcock and eastern whip-poor-wills. 

PHOTO PROVIDED A black-capped chickadee is shown gathering nesting materials in this photo by MaryLou Ziebarth which won a 2023 Audubon Photography Award.

Last summer we finally decided that we would be acting more responsibly if we weren’t burning a lot of gasoline while enjoying nature and searching for birds. Our Toyota hybrid gets good gas mileage, but regardless, we know that North America has lost nearly three billion birds in just the last 50 years, and greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels has played a significant role in those losses. So we bought an electric vehicle.

The PA Public Utility Commission maintains a Papowerswitch.com website which allows any resident of the Commonwealth to switch to renewably generated,

PHOTO PROVIDED Shown is a cerulean warbler in this photo by DJ McNeil.