Since knee surgery last month, I’ve been itching to get back out with my camera at my favorite birding spots. Having weaned myself off a walker and a cane thanks to terrific medical care and physical therapy, I chose this morning to venture out.
My first stop was the Pole Farm (above), where I took a short walk over about half an hour and saw only four birds: one mystery bird that crossed my path as I got out of my car, a turkey vulture circling overhead and two song sparrows foraging on grass near the parking lot.
I was disappointed with the low bird count, which I attributed to an 18-degree thermometer reading and a bitter wind. I took only a few photos of the song sparrows, then decided to head to Colonial Lake a couple of miles away.
I hoped to find some water birds there, and I did. I estimated 40 ring-billed gulls were flying about, floating in the water and parked on ice sheets. I perked up when I saw common mergansers on the far side of the lake, so I walked along the shore to get across from them.
The wind was brisk, and I had to stand firm to steady my camera and lens against it. I took a few shots of the mergansers and gulls before driving home.
The mergansers were a bit out of sharp focus range, but I liked one shot of a female common merganser whose head feathers were fluffed up wildly. I saved one photo of one of the males, initially thinking it was a common merganser. But I was mistaken — it was a red-breasted merganser!
I’d seen e-Bird reports of red-breasted mergansers on the Delaware River and near Trenton the past few days, and this was probably one of those birds. They are rare in Mercer County, and this was my first sighting of one here.
For my first birding outing in a few weeks, the red-breasted merganser was a special treat. I look forward to more in the days and weeks ahead. 🦅
The Jersey Birder 