News Archive

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February 15, 2025, Outing Cancelled
Friday, February 14, 2025
The February 15, 2025, outing to Yellow Creek is cancelled due to inclement weather.

2025 Great Backyard Bird Count
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Join us for the 28th annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) from Friday, February 14, through Monday, February 17, 2025. Bird and nature lovers everywhere, of all skill levels and all abilities, unite in the effort to tally as many global bird species as possible over these four days. Participating is easy, fun to do alone or with others, and can be done anywhere. Count birds from your backyard, local park, or wherever you spot them - it's that simple! Find a group count near you or bird with friends. See https://www.birdcount.org for more information.

Tuesday Yellow Creek Outings on Hiatus
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
The Higbees will not be leading Yellow Creek outings on Tuesdays until they complete their Winter Raptor Surveys. If anyone else would like to lead these outings, please speak up. Otherwise, the Tuesday outing will be on hiatus until after the Winter Raptor Surveys are complete.

Life List Fundraiser
Monday, November 25, 2024
Todd Bird Club is in need of a fund-raiser to cover costs associated with our meetings. Members designed a two-part booklet entitled "My Life List" and "Year�s List Data." Both parts have lists of North American species and accidentals. Part one has columns for a check mark if you have seen the bird, a second column for the date first seen, and the third for the location where your life bird was spotted. Part 2 has ten columns, one for each year beginning in 2025 through 2034. The entire booklet contains 60 pages plus a cover depicting bird photos taken by members. The booklet is encased in a blue SlideLock cover.

The sample booklet was passed around at our November meeting. We are asking for a donation of $10 for this booklet. Please contact our president Sue Dickson jscm130@yahoo.com if you would like to order one. Thanks so very much.

See photos below. (There are no smudges on the pages, but we took the photos with overhead lights turned on.)

PA Bird Atlas Winter Survey Informational Zoom Meeting, November 7
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Amber Wiewel, the Third PA Bird Altas coordinator, will give a brief overview of the atlas' Winter Survey on Thursday, November 7, at 7:00 pm. Join this Zoom meeting live by clicking on the link at https://ebird.org/atlaspa/news/october-and-november-atlas-town-halls.

Or view the video later on the Pennsylvania Bird Atlas YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@PennsylvaniaBirdAtlas. The Winter Survey begins on December 1, 2024.

Armstrong Trail Outing Added for November 9
Monday, November 4, 2024
Theo Rickert will lead a newly added outing to Armstrong Trail on Saturday, November 9, at 8:00 am. For more details see https://www.toddbirdclub.org/cgi-bin/events.pl?EVENTID=984.

PA Bird Atlas Winter Survey Protocols
Monday, October 21, 2024
The PA Bird Atlas Winter Survey will begin on December 1. There will be an on-line introductory town hall on Thursday, November 7, 2024 at 7pm. A link to the Zoom meeting is at https://ebird.org/atlaspa/news/october-and-november-atlas-town-halls. If you miss the town hall, you can watch it later on the Pennsylvania Bird Atlas YouTube channel.

Here is the information that was sent out in September by Amber Wiewel, Pennsylvania Bird Atlas Coordinator:

We are excitedly gearing up for our first ever Winter Atlas season! More info will come in October and November, but here are key points to help answer some of the questions cropping up.
* Winter survey season will run December 1 - February 28.
* Winter atlas data will be collected via the PA Bird Atlas portal in eBird. You'll need to switch back into the portal on Dec 1 if you've left it.
* Observe block boundaries for the winter surveys just like you've done during the breeding season. In other words, be sure to start a new checklist if you are crossing into a new block.
* A few targets will be set for surveying priority blocks (more on that soon), but data can and should be submitted from any and all blocks possible!
* What kind of data do we want? One of the most optimal ways to contribute will be to conduct 1-hour long, traveling (by foot, not vehicle) checklists in habitat patches in your blocks. Adding this standardization to the data collection (in this case, checklists of the same length of time) will allow for more comparison across blocks!
* In addition to 1-hour checklists, all traveling, stationary (including feeder watches), and incidental checklists will be welcome and helpful data.
* As for the 1-hour checklists, don't get too hung up on the "habitat." If a block has habitat patches of significant size, it will be ideal to try to stick to a single major habitat for a 1-hour checklist. But if the block is too patchy, we'll just have to do the best we can with the habitat we've got!

Pennsylvania Bird Atlas (PBA3) Documents
Friday, May 10, 2024
PBA3 Handbook, Version 2

PBA3 Guidelines Chart, Version 1
A detailed chart showing the non-breeding periods, migration periods, and breeding periods for each species.

Guide to Singing Bird Code (S)
Further clarification of which species and calls warrant the Singing (S) breeding code.

PBA3 Beginning Safe Dates
A concise document that you can print and carry with you, listing the dates when each species' safe breeding period begins.

PBA3 Winter Atlas
The Volunteer Handbook, the Priority Blocks, and the Water Surveys.