September Wild Bird Sightings and Garden Notes

September 21, 2020

I wanted to use this blog as a way to track bird sightings over time. Over the weekend, birds were tracked at various points over the course of the two days. I use a pair of Nikon Monarch 5 binoculars to spot and the Audubon bird app on my phone to track and help identify.
Bird Sightings
In addition to the House Sparrows, here are the birds I was able to identify in yard over the past two days.

• House Finch
• American Goldfinch
• Northern Cardinal
• Blue Jay – a pair were at the feeder….there are many in the local area, but do not get them coming to the feeders frequently.
• American Robin – first sighting in over a month now that the lawns have turned green again. With this area being unusually dry resulting in the grass turning brown, the Robins seemed to have moved onto better worm picking areas.
• Mourning Dove
• White-breasted Nuthatch
• Brown headed Cowbird
• Black-capped Chickadee
• American Crows – we have 4 crows that are normally around. The beauty of them being around is they keep the Cooper’s Hawk away from the feeders. So we taken up to throwing out some bread or crackers from time to time.
  The bees were still active around the flowers, but no butterflies.

Weather

This weekend we experienced the first frost of the year, actually occurring each of the last three mornings. This is a bit unusual to have frost this early at the lower elevations in Central PA. From a historical perspective, this first frost is roughly two weeks early.

Day time temperature was in the low to mid 60s…also a bit cool for the last days of summer. But no complaints, the weather was beautiful with blue skies.

So what is the difference between a frost and a freeze. According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, “A frost refers to the conditions that allow a layer of ice crystals to form when water vapor condenses and freezes without first becoming dew. Frost may happen when the “surface” air temperature (officially measured at 4 or so feet above ground) is below 36 degrees F.”

A freeze occurs when the temperatures fall to 32 or below, and there are varying degrees of freeze.

• Light freeze – between 32F and 29F
• Moderate or Hard Freeze – 28F to 25F
• Severe Freeze – 24F or below

Plants can generally survive a frost because the temperature of the ground is still warm enough to protect the plants. The upper extremities of the plants can be damaged however, especially for more sensitive plants (those with higher zone ratings).