State College Bird Club ZOOM Meeting
October 25, 2023


Presiding: Doug Wentzel

Recording: Peggy Wagoner Saporito

Attendance:46

Meeting Format: Zoom

Treasurer’s report:(Karen Kottlowski):

SCBC balance in the checking account is $4088 and savings account is $5575.85. This is member renewal season. Since July we have had 8 new members sign up and 17 renewals. We continue to work on setting up Paypal on the website. In the meantime, for instructions to pay dues, check our website: www.scbirdcl.org.

The audit committee of Ron Crandall, Kathy Bechdel and Julia Plummer has been set. They will be reviewing the treasurer’s accounting during the past year.

Announcements/Other Activities:

A working group of Susan Braun, Deb Escalet and Peggy Wagoner has been established to develop a procedure for distributing funds generated annually from our Centre Foundation endowment.

The listserv continues to be a wonderful source of information about recent sightings and photos of birds as well as daily updates from the hawkwatches in our area. If you are interested in signing up, instructions are on the website. www.scbirdcl.org.

The SCBC history project, a 70-page compilation of stories spanning over 80 years from our founding in 1941 through 2023 compiled by Nick Kerlin is now complete. The next step will be to determine the best means of making this available to a wide audience. Thanks so much to Nick for this wonderful effort.

Project Feeder Watch (https://feederwatch.org) is beginning. Active feeders are established at PSU Arboretum and Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center. Anyone interested in helping to monitor these feeders is welcome.

Greg Grove updated us on the proposed seven acre Rutter’s truck stop development adjacent to and uphill from Old Crow wetland. Smithfield township supervisors have given Rutters another extension for nine months to address issues and criticisms of their planned development. At the DEP sponsored public meeting last May, opposition among the many members of the public in attendance was unanimous and many were given a chance to express their opposition. There is no word yet as to any DEP decision.

Doug reminded us that due to the Thanksgiving holiday, next month’s meeting will be on November 15 when Alan MacEachren will be our speaker.

Bird Club Field Trips: (Susan Smith VP of Field Trips)

One more field trip is planned for November 12 led by Bob Snyder at Bald Eagle State Park (details on our website: www.scbirdcl.org).

Notable Bird Sightings (Greg Grove): (Sept. 27 – Oct 25, 2023; Centre and its contiguous counties)

Waterfowl are beginning to come into our area. November is primetime for migrating waterfowl, so be on the lookout particularly during storms which force migrants down onto our local lakes. Red-necked grebes, an unusual fall visitor, was seen at Bald Eagle State Park. The rufous hummingbird in Penns Valley was a special treat for a couple of weeks before it moved on. Sadly, an extremely rare clapper rail was killed in a window strike on PSU campus (referred to in the minutes of our Sept 27, 2023 meeting). This rail is typically only found around salt water. Virginia rail and common gallinule were noted.  Thanks to Jon Kauffman for keeping tabs on the variety of interesting shorebirds along PA Furnace Road including several plovers, sandpipers and dunlin. At the hawkwatches, the earliest recorded rough-legged hawk was seen at Stone Mtn. on October 7. Monitoring at Bald Eagle mtn hawkwatch began this week now that migrating golden eagles are beginning to make an appearance at local hawkwatches. Marsh wrens were seen in Big Valley and Old Crow wetland. Several red crossbills were seen at Shavers Creek and relatively large numbers of pine siskins have already been noted. This could be an “invasion” year for the winter finches with a particularly good pine seed crop on local conifers. Interesting sparrows have included Nelson’s. Since the last meeting, 27 warbler species have been noted moving through the area including the less often seen species; orange-crowned, mourning and Connecticut. Local night flight call data has revealed northern saw-whet owls and dickcissel flying over our area on their migration.

Speaker: Mercy Melo: “Hawk Mountain Sanctuary's American Kestrel Project.”

(This entire presentation can be viewed at:)
https://psu.zoom.us/rec/share/xMv2or_zoywCH6zuSpaUzLG9xjZtIGoWoRim0znxKrnO5at2WA2NhwRoubvzfgdG.42piVn0PUAUfy9Pd

Mercy, a PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is conducting a multifaceted study to address the decline of American kestrels. She is doing this work in association with Hawk Mountain Sanctuary’s American Kestrel Project, the longest running American kestrel nest box program in the country started in the 1950’s and now numbering 130 nest boxes in the areas surrounding HMS.

As a study species, kestrels offer many advantages. In fact, these little falcons were the species studied in captivity during the 1960’s and 70’s that showed the negative impacts of DDT on raptors and led to its eventual ban.

Kestrels, the smallest diurnal raptors in North American, are found throughout the continent. Within much of the US, they are present year-round. Kestrels inhabit open areas such as agricultural and grassland settings, making them relatively easy to spot on the landscape. As cavity nesters, they readily utilize nest boxes that can be monitored throughout the breeding season, allowing researchers to follow the development of young. Additionally, kestrels’ sexual dimorphism makes distinguishing the sexes easy.
 
As shown by Breeding Bird Surveys and annual migration counts at hawk watches, there has been a significant decline in kestrel populations seen throughout much of the continent including the northeast. The research that Mercy is involved with hopes to identify causes of this decline and develop management plans to address and reverse this trend.

One factor implicated in the decline is the kestrels’ diet which includes insects (such as grasshoppers), songbirds (starling size and smaller) and rodents (voles and mice). The presence of kestrels in agricultural settings can be beneficial, since these falcons eat pests that may otherwise consume or contaminate agricultural products such as grains. However, their diet exposes kestrels to the rodenticides, insecticide and herbicides that are used on croplands. These pesticides have shown a range of negative impacts on kestrels ranging from reduced cognitive ability to acute toxicity.
 
In addition to these environmental contaminants, a variety of additional interrelated factors are having negative impacts on kestrel populations. Habitat change due to residential or industrial development in areas that were formerly agricultural or grassland landscapes reduce suitable habitat for nesting, reduce prey abundance and can introduce contaminants such as rodenticides and pesticides used in home landscapes. Predation by larger raptors such as Coopers hawks or competition for nest sites by introduced species such as starlings can negatively impact kestrel populations. Other factors such as West Nile Virus, mortality in migration, collisions with structures and climate change can all have negative impacts on kestrel numbers.

Mercy described the extensive monitoring of all nest boxes in the HMS American Kestrel Project. Activities include weekly growth measurements of chicks and blood samples taken prior to fledging tested for contaminants. Young are banded and some fitted with transmitters so they can be followed after their departure from the nest. Landscape level monitoring of prey (small mammal, insect and songbird abundance) and vegetation surveys in areas surrounding nest boxes are recorded. Additionally, the impact of the presence of Coopers hawk on nesting kestrels was studied using Coop call recordings and a taxidermy Coop dummy during the nesting season.
 
This extensive monitoring is being replicated by many collaborators in locations across the country, particularly in the Northeast. The goal is to develop and communicate management plans to help kestrel populations throughout their range. Data and results from all of these collaborators are still being compiled, but already there are recommendations that are being communicated to the public to help kestrels including providing nestboxes, maintaining suitable habitats and reducing/eliminating the use of pesticides. Helping kestrels will also benefit all farmland and grassland species that have suffered the greatest population declines over the past 50 years.