April 2022 Trip to Philadelphia, Birds, Cherries and Museum

A post about my trip to Philadelphia, about bird viewing, cherry blossoms and museums.

Eagle

The warm weather in March, 2022 meant cherry blossom was earlier than usual around Washington DC, whose peak bloom unfortunately coincided with bad weather. Meanwhile, I found out peak blooms for cherries in Philadelphia were usually a few weeks after Washington DC, and they would be holding a cherry blossom festival on the weekend of April 9-10, featuring a few taiko concerts.
In addition, after getting my new 150-600mm lens, I was looking for opportunities to test it out. So on my way to Philadelphia, I decided to try out a few spots for birding, in addition to the usual errands that I need to run.

Conowingo Fisherman’s Park

So on the morning of April 9, I reached Conowingo Fisherman’s Park, along my usual route towards Philadelphia. The presence of the nearby Conowingo Hydro Station meant a feasting ground for birds, and this park thus became a popular birding spot.

A highlight of the park was that a few bald eagles tend to reside in surrounding areas, and their magnificent sights were hard to catch in other places. By the time I arrived, I caught a group of photographers pointing at this one on top of a tree.

And then I found another one flying onto a different tree.

And here is a collection of eagles in flight. Unfortunately my camera wasn’t that good at focusing at moving objects, so some of them were blurry.

Apart from bald eagles, there were many other water birds flying around. Many of them seem to be looking for food in the water.

In addition, I spotted a crane across the river, and many other fowls with feathers too dark to be aesthetic.

Crane
Crane
Bird
Bird
Bird

Conowingo Dam

It was gloomy (top) by the time I arrived, and I was even greeted with a short hail. But by the time I was about to leave (bottom), the weather turned for the better.

I spent about an hour at Conowingo Fisherman’s Park watching the birds come and go, unfortunately there weren’t many eagle movements that the park was known for.
After that, I continued my way towards Philadelphia. With some errands along the way and a major crash causing a 30-minute delay along I95, I reached the next birding spot, John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, just past 5pm.

John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge

It’s claimed to be the best birding spot in the state of Pennsylvania, which baffled me as it’s right next to Philadelphia Airport. I recalled airports generally don’t like birds around.

The wildlife refuge was made of a lake with a 5.6km loop trail around it. It seemed to me that most of the interesting birds were on the far side from the parking lot, but I really wasn’t in the mood for hiking today, so I made it to the first observation tower 1.2km from the parking lot and back.

The most exhilarating output of the day was this bird, probably some sort of vulture, stationary in the air and looking for its prey. The way it swung its wings was both magnificent and gracious.

Then near the observation tower, this swan swam by me. Its pride kept it from paying attention to my camera though.

Apart from this, John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge abounded in wild animals. I enjoy walking among the chirping sounds of nature, but unlike earlier at Conowingo Fisherman’s Park, most of the birds here were much smaller, making it hard to photograph them.

Bird

Duck

Otter

After wrapping up at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, I was feeling sort of tired, so I headed straight towards my overnight hotel in Plymouth Meeting.

Hotel Room: Hyatt House Philadelphia Plymouth Meeting

I stayed in the same hotel about a year ago, and back then despiting being offered an upgrade I wasn’t too happy with the condition of the room, which might have something to do with the low occupancy due to COVID. This time, at least I didn’t have any issues with the room.

Fast forward to the next morning. After breakfast at the hotel, I headed towards Fairmount Park Horticulture Center for the cherry blossom festival.

Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival

While officially the cherry blossom festival used the area around Ohio House for parking ($10 per day), there was ample free parking at the nearby Belmont Plateau Softball Fields (that I believed never filled up for the day).

As for the festival itself, its Sunday schedule featured a few taiko performances on a makeshift stage at Centennial Arboretum. I wasn’t remotely good even at Taiko no Tatsujin, so I won’t comment on the performance, just that they seemed to involve much more than beating the drums, most notably the vocal and group formation part.

Kyo Daiko Performance
NYC Yosakoi Kogyoku Performance
Joe Small Performance
Swarthmore Taiko Ensemble Performance

The festival took place on the eastern half of Centennial Arboretum, which I believed the cherries weren’t in that great a shape. In comparison, I liked the cherries on the western half, they were sparser but at least the colors looked more vivid.

Centennial Arboretum
Cherry
Cherry
Cherry
Cherry
Event Grounds
Well, there were more people than cherry flowers.

I didn’t like what the few food stands at the cherry blossom festival had to offer (and the long lines in front of them), so I left the scene and headed towards the other side of Schuylkill River for lunch.

Lunch

I visited the same Chinese restaurant a year ago and it was really great. This time, this dish felt like right out of the microwave.

Barnes Foundation

After lunch, the nearby Barnes Foundation was an art museum that had always been on my bucket list, and this afternoon I finally got time to pay it a visit.
The gallery spaces in Barnes Foundation were rather limited, and their collection was sort of cramped. However, they offered a website where visitors could scan artworks on their phones to query their information. I had to say the scanning part went great, and it’s nice to see them leading the peers on museum technologies.

The Factory
Vincent van Gogh
The Square Watch-Tower
Jan van Goyen
Portrait of Joseph Roulin
Vincent van Gogh
Entrance
Pond

Schuylkill River

After leaving Barnes Foundation, I determined there was still time left in the day, so I decided to check out the nearby Schuylkill River. In particular, I thought the western bank of Schuylkill River would be a great place for photographing Fairmount Dam and Philadelphia Museum of Art, two impressive sights of architecture.

It’s just that my destination, “Fairmount Fish Ladder”, didn’t offer any parking, and on the day of my visit, the entire Martin Luther King Drive was closed to vehicular traffic, so I had to make the mile-long one-way trek on foot.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Downtown Philadelphia from Schuylkill River
Boathouse Row
Boathouse Row
Boathouse Row
Boathouse Row
Boathouse Row
Fairmount Dam and Boathouse Row

Birds

Along the way I gave my new 150-600mm lens a try and took a few shoots at these waterbirds in Schuylkill River. Probably because Fairmount Dam wasn’t as good at trapping fish as the previous Conowingo Dam, there weren’t as many waterbirds around.

Fairmount Dam
Capture from the west (left) and east (right) bank of Schuylkill River.

After that, I headed back home and concluded this weekend in Philadelphia.

END

April 2022 Trip to Philadelphia, Birds, Cherries and Museum by Huang's Site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Category: Travel

Huang's Site

Fluctuat Nec Mergitur

April 2022 Trip to Philadelphia, Birds, Cherries and Museum

Conowingo Fisherman’s Park

John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge

Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival

Barnes Foundation

Schuylkill River

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