Annual Meeting Field Trips

PSO Annual Meeting May 15-17, 2009

This year the field trips on Saturday will be all-day events. For those participants who do not wish to bird all day, there will be a workshop on bird painting at the hotel in the afternoon. The trip leaders will be on the field trip sign-up sheets at the Friday night meeting.

Field Trips - Saturday - Sunday

Saturday May 15

Presque Isle State Park is a sandspit of land that extends seven miles into the water with Lake Erie on its outer boundaries and the bay to the south. Its varied habitats include sandy beaches, scrubby thickets, grassy areas, willows, cottonwoods, and marshes. The peninsula is studied by naturalists and geologists, and its inner portion is an ecological reservation. To date 324 species of birds have been recorded there, some of which are seldom or never seen in other parts of the state.

The field trips will visit various spots at Presque Isle State Park. One of the best known is Gull Point, first established as a bird sanctuary in 1927. It’s famous as a viewing area for migrant waterbirds and shorebirds and a nesting area for Piping Plovers. Other places include Lily Pond, Leo’s with its view of the lagoon and cattail marsh, the Sidewalk Trail where Red-headed Woodpeckers nest, Fry’s Landing, Thompson Circle at the beginning of Dead Pond Trail and a viewing area for spring migrating raptors, Pine Tree Trail with its large stand of mostly Scotch pines, Sunset Point, the Coast Guard jetty, and Beach 11.

Another possible destination outside the park in Crawford County is Pymatuning State Park on the Pennsylvania-Ohio border to the south with its 16-mile long lake.

East Avenue in the city of Erie itself is a good waterside viewing area, and there’s the newly established Erie Bluffs State Park southwest of the city.

Located as a gateway entrance to Presque Isle is the recently completed and highly acclaimed Tom Ridge Environmental Center, a research and teaching facility.

So there will be many choices. On Friday evening a sign-up sheet will be available for each of the field trips.

Sunday, May 16