My friend Jim and I crossed the Delaware River from Trenton this morning on a hunt for a rare visitor from the Arctic: a rough-legged hawk. Amazingly, we spotted the bird almost immediately, but the morning had much more in store for us.
The rough-legged hawk had been reported the previous few days hunting around the Penn Warner Club, a private fishing and recreation area at the south end of Morrisville, Pennsylvnia. The town is along the Delaware River roughly 30 miles north of Philadelphia.
As Jim and I drove into our target area on Bordentown Road, he spotted two bald eagles in a roadside tree –– a good omen. We turned to the road that would take us to a club parking lot and soon spotted a hawk-like bird perched on a pipe at the top of the ridge to our left. Pulling off to the side of the public road, we hopped out of the car and trained binoculars and cameras on the bird.
After a minute or two, the bird flew off. We checked our camera screens and got our proof. The bird had a mostly white face with a white bib above a dark body — a rough-legged hawk.
We drove to the club parking lot a short way ahead and spotted a few more bald eagles in trees along the way. Once at the lot, we spotted four bald eagles atop a power transmission tower, and I watched as a fifth eagle harassed one of them. Both flew off.
At another point, we saw three eagles atop another tower, and there were many others alone or together in trees and on an ice sheet on a lake off the road.
The eagles were a mix of adults and juveniles, so many young ones that I was heartened for the future of the bird that once was on the precipice of extinction.
A passing motorist told us there were more bald eagles down the road, and we confirmed that as we drove south. We stopped near a bridge that spanned a cove where we saw a coot, buffleheads and ruddy ducks. Farther out on the water were hundreds of common mergansers, with many others flying overhead.
Toward the end of our two-hour visit, we spotted red-tailed hawks, male and female Northern harriers, and an American kestrel. Jim’s hunch that a bird we saw atop one of the power towers was a peregrine falcon turned out to be accurate once we got home and checked our photos.
We figure we saw around 30 eagles, an astonishing total and the largest number I’ve ever seen. My previous high total was 27 bald eagles I saw at Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska, 30 years ago.
I gained a lifer in the rough-legged hawk, which we spotted a second time on our way back up the road. It flew from one post to another, so we drove a bit to see it clearly and closer on the second post. As soon as I pulled my camera out of the car, the bird flew off. I believe Jim got a shot of that, and we decided it was time for us to head off, too. 🦅
Note: the Penn Warner Club is private, members only, as signs near the gates to several sections plainly note. Jim and I parked briefly on the sides of the road and at a few pullouts. Several other birders parked with us at the parking lot by the club’s main entrance. We did not venture farther onto club land and don’t recommend it for others.
The Jersey Birder 