Nevermore

I work a block away from the Edgar Allen Poe house in Philadelphia.  There is a bronze Raven sculpture in the front yard of the house where he supposedly lived for a few years.  Ironically, there are no Ravens in Philadelphia but there are lots of Ravens in California.  Lots.  We encountered Ravens on each outing from San Francisco down to Pasadena but a few are blog worthy. 

The first Raven we photographed was hanging out on a fire pit at Muir Beach.  California allows dogs and fires on almost all of their beaches which is pretty cool.  This Raven was obviously used to both of those things.

Common Raven

Check out the big beak and thick neck on this bird that distinguishes it from a Crow along with the size difference.

The next notable Ravens were seen at Mt. Wilson observatory outside of Pasadena.  Di and I took a drive up to the top of the 5,000 foot mountain where they have several really large telescopes on Sunday.  One of the workers noticed our binoculars and camera and asked if we would be interested to see a Raven's nest.  Hell yeah!  He said "see that cliff over there?" "Um, which one?" "the one with the missing rock" "Um, which one?".  Well, you get the gist of it.  He was patient and we finally saw the nest:

 And then we got to see the birds fly out of the nest and soar around the canyon.  Trust me, the soaring photos were terrible!  Here is the best shot I could get of the Raven leaving the nest:

They were quite cooperative and landed on a tree snag right along the path to the telescopes for these photos.

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'

Whiffed!

For more than 3 weeks now, all of the Pennsylvania birding community has been abuzz over 3 rarities that have been seen in Cumberland County near Shippensburg.  The big buzz came with the Snowy Owl that has been hanging around in a corn field since Jan 11th.  The bird has been seen every day since it was first reported.  We were told about it being seen on the same road as the second special bird - Prairie Falcon.  This bird has been seen every winter for the past 3 years faithfully patrolling the fields in search of little birds to eat.  Then, as though on cue, a Townsend's Warbler showed up at some guy's feeder 2 weeks ago and hasn't left. 

All of these birds are out of their normal range.  You can guess where the Snowy Owl normally lives.  You can also put 2 and 2 together about the Prairie Falcon.  The Townsend's Warbler is one that I should tell you is usually found west of the Mississippi river. 

Lori and I set out this morning (with Roxy in tow) to see the trifecta.  We finally had a day to travel out there, so we packed sandwiches and the optics and headed west on the PA Turnpike.  We arrived at the famed intersection of Duncan and Mud Level Roads around 10:20.  We drove up and down the road.  We spoke to other birders.  We scanned every field.

We saw lots of cows and we dodged the Mennonite buggies.

We had a great view of a Common Raven which is pretty unusual.  Notice the blocky head which is a good field mark to distinguish this bird from a crow.

We saw many Horned Larks flitting around the freshly manured fields. Lifers for Lori.

But guess what we didn't see?  I know that you already figured it out otherwise I would have lead the story with a photo of the owl or the falcon or the warbler.  We completely struck out on all three of those rarities.  We were really crushed - along with about a dozen other cars full of birders who had the same disappointed look on their faces.  It was a long drive home.