The State College Bird Club, Inc.

The State College Bird Club met on Wednesday April 23  at 7:15 p.m. at the State College Borough Building.   ??  members and guests attended.  President Greg Grove presided.  The minutes of the March 25  meeting were read by Deb Grove and approved. Dorothy Bordner delivered the Treasurer’s Report which is given below. Dorothy also read the checklist: bird species seen within 25 miles between March 26 and April 23.  ??   bird species were seen and notable sightings were RNGR, WWSC at BESP, YTVI, YTWA in the Barrens, WIWR Stone Mtn., SWHA at Tussey Mtn EagleWatch, RUBL.

Molly Heath informed the group of the May 11  field trip with Greg Grove at Detweiler Run.  Also, a trip to Cape May will be led by Roana Fuller on May 16 –18.

Doug Wentzel reminded the group of the upcoming Birding Cup on May 3. Proceeds of pledges benefit Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center.  The North American Migration Count will be on May 10. Gene Zielinski is coordinator for Centre County and Doug Wentzel for Huntingdon County. The PSO meeting will take place May 16-18 in Indiana PA.

The last meeting of the year will be May 28 with Paul Zeph from the Pennsylvania Audubon Society speaking on the Conservation and Protection of the Kittatinny Ridge

Laurie Goodrich from Hawk Mountain Sanctuary spoke on the Hawk Mountain Raptor Conservation Project which is to foster the conservation of birds of prey worldwide. In order to determine the best conservation methods effective raptor monitoring and habitat and energy needs of migrating raptors will be determined.

Monitoring raptors will be through a multi-site approach and use several current methods which include the Breeding Bird Surveys, the Audubon Christmas Bird counts and the most effective, the Migration counts.  Migration counts represent real trends and Hawk Mountain monitoring has established significant decreases in NOHA, AMKE, SSHA, RTHA, BWHA. On the other hand, there are significant increases in BAEA, GOEA, ML, PEGA, BLVU. Other sites will add data to firmly establish changes in raptor populations. These data will come from HMANA, CMBO, and HWI partnerships with Hawk Mountain.

Habitat monitoring will be done to determine if stopover habitat is important. Three questions will be asked: 1) How wide of a migration corridor is required? 2) What type of habitat is required? 3) Which habitat is better:  forest or open country? Road side surveys are already underway along major ridges and into the adjacent valleys.

Energy needs are also being assessed by determining whether migrating raptors are carrying food or have full crops.  Early data show that 78% of red tails had full crops, 68% sharpshins and 58% coopers but only  5% broadwings. Less than 2%  ospreys  are carrying fish.

These studies are continuing.

Respectfully submitted.

Deborah S. Grove, May 28, 2003