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 tookContinue reading “A return to the Pole Farm, and a surprise at Colonial Lake”
Author Archives: Dan
A good omen for the Eagles in the Super Bowl
My wife and I were having lunch at the kitchen table when she looked up and saw a bird coming in for a landing on the golf course that adjoins our yard. It was no ordinary bird. On this Super Bowl Sunday, a bald eagle paid us a call, and I consider that a goodContinue reading “A good omen for the Eagles in the Super Bowl”
How to tell downy and hairy woodpeckers apart
I wrote Sunday about the relatively rare appearance of a hairy woodpecker in our yard. But there’s more to the story! First off, after the male hairy woodpecker appeared in the morning, I looked out the window during lunch to find a female hairy woodpecker on the feeder. That gives me hope that a breedingContinue reading “How to tell downy and hairy woodpeckers apart”
The eagles are back, and not just at the Super Bowl
The Associated Press has a terrific story out today on the resurgence of the bald eagle, and I’m quoted in it. Having headed several AP bureaus and served as a university spokesperson, I’m accustomed to speaking with reporters. But this is the first time I can recall being quoted as an individual, in this caseContinue reading “The eagles are back, and not just at the Super Bowl”
A hairy woodpecker pays a rare call
Sometimes it takes a while for the bird recognition neurons in my brain to kick in. That happened this morning as I was looking out the windows toward our backyard feeders. I’d watched a female downy woodpecker fly onto the suet feeder and munch a while before flitting off. A few minutes later, another woodpeckerContinue reading “A hairy woodpecker pays a rare call”
Wings clipped, I can still do some birding
Last week I had knee replacement surgery, and it will be a few if not several weeks before I can get back out into the fields. Even though I’m largely homebound, I can still partake of the pleasure of watching the birds through the windows that frame our backyard and the golf course beyond it.Continue reading “Wings clipped, I can still do some birding”
‘Wingspan’ is a great game for birders and birders-to-be
Even if you aren’t a birder, you very likely will like Wingspan, a popular board game released in 2019 that challenges players to develop bird populations in forest, grassland and wetland habitats. If you are a birder and haven’t yet played Wingspan, you probably will soon, either at the invitation of a friend who hasContinue reading “‘Wingspan’ is a great game for birders and birders-to-be”
A cold morning for sparrows
We’re at the front end of a cold snap that will bring temperatures down into the single digits Fahrenheit for a few days. We had two to three inches of snow fall yesterday, and I pulled on my Muck boots to head to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. It was slim pickings for birds. IContinue reading “A cold morning for sparrows”
A sure thing: great blue herons in Princeton
Whether it’s a single bird or one of many, I can count on seeing and photographing great blue herons at the Millstone River Impoundment in Princeton. At first this morning, I didn’t see the heron in its usual spot just off the pedestrian bridges over the Delaware and Raritan canal. I walked on the eastContinue reading “A sure thing: great blue herons in Princeton”
Surprise! It’s a hermit thrush
One of the joys of photographing birds is the unexpected bird that shows up on your computer screen, as happened to me this morning. I was on one of my usual two-mile loops at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, walking the trail counterclockwise, when I spotted a couple of bluebirds in a tree with smallContinue reading “Surprise! It’s a hermit thrush”
The Jersey Birder 