15 February 2025

Welcome to Day Two of the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). I’m staying indoors while it snows and rains so much that …

FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 AM EST THIS MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING...Flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be possible.

— National Weather Service forecast for Pittsburgh PA 15 Feb 2025

Gull: Since most of the rain will fall south of here the Monongahela River will rise again. It was falling last Tuesday when I photographed one of the many ring-billed gulls at Duck Hollow. This one seemed to be asking, “Do you have food for me?” Someone had left birdseed on the trash can cover.

4 Merlins: Yesterday I went to the Bob O’Connor Golf Course at Schenley Park half an hour before sunset to see if I could find the two merlins who usually hang out there. As soon as I arrived one flew in and landed on the highest pine in the Palmer Loop Practice Area north of Schenley Drive.

Soon a second merlin landed on top of the tallest tree, a bare tree between holes 8 and 9. I walked a big circle to check for songbirds and saw the first merlin in an intense chase with a third. On my way back to the car I found a fourth(!) and was able to stand in one spot and see all four merlins at the same time.

Four is unusual but I remember a time, perhaps in the late 1990s, when Bill Hintze first found merlins at the golf course. In those days there were sometimes as many as four.

60 Feet into Ohio: On Monday 10 Feb four of us went birding on the Stavich Bike Trail in Lawrence County PA to do a Winter Survey for the Third PA Breeding Bird Atlas. We were ready to head back to the car when I realized we were only a half mile from Ohio. So we kept going, crossed the state line and walked 60 feet into Ohio.

Ta dah! Here we are just inside Pennsylvania. Best Bird: a white-crowned sparrow.

Bonus Picture — great horned owlet: Here’s another owlet baby picture from Tues 11 Feb. The white fluff in front of the mother owl is the owlet’s head facing left with its eyes closed.