Unless the weather is horrible or I have a family or other priority commitment, I get out birding almost every day. Most of my outings run in the 90-minute range, but shorter sessions can also bring joy.
Today was an unusual three-stop day, starting at the Charles Rogers Preserve in Princeton for about 45 minutes with a brief stop at the Dyson Tract along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Hearing that a little blue heron was spotted on the lake at Veterans Park in Hamilton, I dashed down there after lunch.
While I didn’t see the little blue, I was instead treated to a bald eagle sitting on a snag log. I’m not sure how far away the bird was, but I was astonished at the clarity of the shots I got when I brought them up on screen. My favorite tops this post. In the one below, note the drop of water on the tip of the eagle’s beak. I snapped the shot a moment after the bird had taken a sip of water.
Mallard ducks and Canada geese are returning to the lake at summer’s mid-point, and I was surprised to see three double-crested cormorants perched on a log at the lake’s edge below the levee path. I didn’t realize it while squeezing the shutter, but a barn swallow bombed the photo.
On Tuesday morning, I took a good walk at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, veering off onto a trail that skirts one of the grassy meadows on the Reed-Bryan Farm side of the park. The best photo from that outing was of a great crested flycatcher I found on the alley of trees near the Cold Soil Road parking lot.
Eating dinner last night, I heard another great crested flycatcher calling from nearby. I didn’t pursue finding it. But it was good knowing one was in the neighborhood.
On each of these outings, I photographed only a few birds. That was also the case Sunday, when I drove out to the Millstone River Impoundment in Princeton. The only shots I took were of a double-crested cormorant perched at the edge of a Lake Carnegie island and a barn swallow that briefly stopped atop one of the rails of the footbridge that crosses the Delaware and Raritan Canal.
Were any of these photos prize-winners? No.
They are, however, evidence of enjoyable outings in Mercer County that keep me engaged with nature almost every day. That is its own reward. 🦅
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