The sweet “pee-uh-wee!” call of the Eastern wood pewee has been sounding repeatedly in my part of New Jersey this Labor Day weekend. I heard several again this morning at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm and at the Dyson Tract along the Delaware and Raritan Canal.
More often than not, I log my e-Bird pewee reports based on hearing them rather than seeing them. But they’ve been out in the open this weekend, and I caught a couple of shots of one of them in profile, high up in a tree at the Pole Farm.
The more pewees I encounter, the more frustrated I grow at not having seen their flycatcher cousin, the Eastern phoebe, since April last year.
That’s why when I wrapped up my walk at the Pole Farm, I drove over to the Dyson Tract, where I’ve often seen phoebes on the canal bank near the bridge that crosses the canal. Again today, no phoebes were found.
Only a few weeks ago, the swamp just off the canal had plenty of water to attract great egrets and little blue herons. Now, the swamp has dried up. Where there almost always is a layer of water deep enough to attract ducks, today there’s only green vegetation studded by the usual trees and stumps.
Sic transit natura. 🦅
The Jersey Birder 