My 10 favorite bird photos of 2025

I’ve had a lot of fun reviewing the bird photos I took in 2025, and it took me several passes to sort out the top 10. Weirdly, on my first ranking, I discovered that a few of the birds that made my 2024 top 10 were included in my ’25 list.

Was I playing favorites with Eastern meadowlarks, common mergansers and great blue herons? Not so, but I reconsidered. At the top of the list I chose the one above showing a female common yellowthroat in full-throated exclamation. It’s one I hadn’t posted here previously. I took it June 21 at Mercer Meadows, although I can’t recall precisely where.

I admit freely that common yellowthroats are among my favorite birds. I have plenty of shots of them, mostly males, in profile or three-quarter views with their beaks open in song. Looking at the female, I can’t help but interpret the bird’s seeming rage as a metaphor for the divisive political climate of the United States. I shall make no further comment on that and leave us all to the beauty, joy and occasional humor that birds bring us.

For my second choice, I’m going with a double-crested cormorant just about to ingest a fish on Oct. 4 at Veterans Park in Hamilton. This may be my best image of the year, and — not unlike the fish depicted — I flipped and flopped over whether to designate it No. 1. It is the most dramatic and wild image I took.

A double-crested cormorant on a lake grabs a fish in its beak. The fish's head is pointing directly at the bird's throat.
2. Down the hatch!

While No. 2 shows the harsher side of nature, my third choice brings out its beauty. This Savannah sparrow was perched atop a plant with wine-red berries at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, and the light was warm. When color and light converge, the odds of a memorable image increase.

Savannah sparrow perched a cluster of red berries.
3. Savannah sparrow on red berries.

I know you’re here for the images, so I’m going to ease off on the narrative and let the photos and captions carry you the rest of the way.

A ruby-throated hummingbird hovers just to the right of a tall stock of cardinal flower, with bright red blossoms.
4. A ruby-throated hummingbird floats by a red plant at Acadia National Park in Maine. Flecks of nectar can been seen by the bird’s back.
A bald eagle perches atop a bare tree limb, looking down toward the ground.
5. A bald eagle surveying the land from a tree top.
Eastern towhee sitting on a tree branch, turning its head to the left.
6. An Eastern towhee stands in the sun.
A green heron, feet obscured by grasses, stands on a downed log in a swamp.
A green heron perches on a log at the Dyson Tract swamp near the Delaware and Raritan Canal.
A yellow warbler takes off from a bare tree branch and flies toward a deep blue sky above.
8. A yellow-warbler takes flight at the Dyson Tract.
A blue-gray gnatcatcher clings upside down on a tree branch and pecks at a green leaf.
9. An upside-down blue-gray gnatcatcher snips at a tree branch.
A Northern harrier, its wingtips illuminated from behind by the setting sun, soars over a field and in front of bare trees in the background.
10. Northern harrier flying at sunset at the Pole Farm.

Thanks for following my blog, and I hope you enjoyed seeing these photos. (The gnatcatcher shot is also first published here.) 2026 is underway, and I’m looking forward to sharing more of my birding adventures in the months ahead. 🦅

When raptors make a house call — at your own home

I wasn’t able to leave home today to go birding, which makes what transpired this afternoon all the more remarkable. Early in the afternoon, just before my wife and I sat down for lunch, I looked out the dining room window and was astonished to see a hawk in the laurel tree that marks the border with our neighbors’ yard.

Even more surprising, it was a red-shouldered hawk — one I had never spotted on our lot before. I was able to grab my camera and take several shots. The bird was mostly in the clear, although its beak was slightly obscured by a small branch. This shot was best of the lot.

Red-shouldered hawk sitting in profile on a tree branch, with smaller branches surrounding it.
Red-shouldered hawk.

I moved a few steps around our Christmas tree to try to get a shot straighter on from a window on the side of the house, but by then the bird had disappeared. I reckon that a house sparrow that had been perched stock still in one of the bushes by the house was breathing easier after that.

After lunch, I went back into the dining room and glanced onto the golf course beyond our property line. To my amazement, a mature bald eagle was sitting on the side of the 11th hole.

A mature bald eagle, with a white head, yellow beak and white tail, sits in the grass.
Bald eagle sitting in grass on the edge of the 11th hole.

I picked up the camera and shot a few frames through a window, then opened the sliding back door. The eagle either saw me move or heard the shutter click, and it took off to fly a loop close to the condominiums that parallel the 10th fairway.

I looked through the trees and picked up the bird for a few seconds, trusting autofocus and motor drive to do their duty.

With condos the background and tree branches in the foreground, a bald eagle starts turning toward its right and begins heading toward the photogrpaher.
The eagle starts turning toward me.

The camera did a decent job on a few frames, and if I had better Lightroom skills I might have offered a couple of other photos of the bird flying toward me. It eventually went between our house and the neighbors’ place and out of sight.

This wasn’t our first eagle spotting at home. Last February, a bald eagle flew a similar loop over the golf course on Super Bowl Sunday. There have been other sightings over our 10 years here.

No matter where I see a bald eagle, it’s a thrill. Seeing one so close to me on a day when a red-shouldered hawk also appeared is an experience I won’t forget. 🦅

Slip-sliding into the new year

I can’t not get out and go birding on New Year’s Day. So with a bitter wind blowing in my face, I headed up the trail at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, quickly realizing that underneath the half inch of snow that had fallen overnight lay a slippery layer of ice.

With that gusty wind blowing, I wasn’t able to spot a single bird in the fields. But as I reached the edge of the woods, robins started appearing. And appearing. And reappearing.

Few other birds were about, but as I reversed course and exited the woods, I spotted several house finches in the cedars at the edge of the fields. One of the males tops this post.

Seeing a report of bald eagles at Mercer County Park, at mid-morning I drove over there. The big group of eagles had skedaddled, but I did spot one swooping over the lake. I wasn’t quick enough to catch a photo of it worth saving.

I did, however, spot a blue jay and catch it on camera.

A blue jay sits on a medium tree branch, with smaller branches framing it.
Blue Jay at Mercer County Park.

As 4 p..m. approached, I made a quick run back to the Pole Farm, hoping that perhaps a short-eared owl or Northern harrier would appear at sunset. I saw three harriers, including the “gray ghost” male, but they were too far off for a decent shot.

I did shoot the moon, literally, and I’m happy to end this post with that shot. Good birding and good shooting to all in ’26.

Come to think of it, 26 is Saquon Barkley’s jersey number on the Philadelphia Eagles. Go birds! 🦅

The moon, nearly full, floats in a deep blue sky.
The nearly full moon hovering over the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm a few minutes before sunset.

A (tundra) swan song for 2025

For my last outing of 2025, I headed to John Roebling Park late this morning, hoping to catch sight of a tundra swan that was reported there yesterday. I had only to walk a short way up the trail from the parking lot to spot the bird, chilling with a few gulls in the middle of Spring Lake.

Finding this rare visitor from the Arctic at Abbott Marshlands bore a certain irony. Previously, visitors to the park could expect nearly every day of the year to see a pair of mute swans on the lake or on the nearby marsh. But the mute swans disappeared sometime in the spring and have not come back, to my great chagrin.

Tundra swan floating on lake turns its head to the side and gazes acros the blue water.
The tundra swan turns its head and looks across the lake.

But the tundra sighting was welcome on this cold and sunny final day of 2025, a natural point of reflection. I logged 142 species in Mercer County, seven better than last year. I’m not driven by numbers (well, maybe a little) but I’m pleased with the result. I missed several weeks of birding in the immediate weeks after undergoing knee surgeries in January and November. Still, I managed to file 316 checklists on e-Bird, filling some of the gaps by birding from home while recuperating.

I counted 11 lifers in 2025, bringing my total to 240. While I didn’t go birding in any new counties in New Jersey, I was able to get a few of those lifers in West Virginia, Maine and Pennsylvania.

For 2026, I look forward to more birding in more places and more time on the trails with birding friends. I thank all my readers for taking time to read my posts, visit my site and offer comments. I am fortunate for your friendship, from near and far. Happy New Year! 🦅

Indoor ‘birding’ at the Princeton University Art Museum

With winds gusting to 50 mph today, I was not in the mood to battle the cold when I expected few birds would be flying. Instead, I headed to the Princeton University Art Museum, intent on pursuing a weird idea: to find birds depicted in the museum’s collections.

The new museum, which opened to the public Oct. 31, was built on the same spot on campus where the previous museum was located. The new museum has a greater gallery capacity in which to show off its outstanding collections.

On this, my second visit to the new building, I spent the bulk of my time on the second floor, where the standing exhibits are based, everything from ancient sculpture to modern paintings.

At the top of the stairway that takes visitors from the lobby to the second floor, I spotted the first bird: a dove hovering between the angel and Mary in a stained-glass depiction of the Annunciation. The placard explaining the piece included commentary from Virginia Raguin, an emeritus professor at my alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross, where I minored in art history.

A white dove hovers between Mary, in a blue gown and holding her hands in prayer, and an angel, robed in red with index finger extended.
Stained-glass depiction of the Annunciation, circa 1600 from either the Netherlands or northern Italy.

As I entered a gallery that features several Impressionist paintings, I was drawn to a 1903 Monet featuring a flock of seagulls flying before the Houses of Parliament in London. A photo of that painting tops this post.

Turning a corner, I found a spectacular painting from the early 1600s, Cupid Supplicating Jupiter, credited to Willem Panneels, after Peter Paul Rubens. A huge eagle dominates the foreground of the painting. On the same wall was a painting by Rubens himself depicting Jupiter, in the guise of an eagle, abducting Ganymede, who would become cup-bearer to the god (aka Zeus to the Greeks).

A huge eagle in foreground spreads its wings. Behind, naked Cupid with angel wings approaches the god Jupiter, bare-chested and otherwise wrapped in a flowing red garment.
The eagle steals the scene in this painting of Cupid appealing to Jupiter.
Ganymede, blond-haired and naked, is grabbed by a large brown eagle.
Abduction of Ganymede.

The eagle paintings were the most spectacular depictions of birds that I found during my visit, and I make no claim that I saw every bird in the galleries. There are hundreds of objects on display, many of them small items displayed in glass cases.

One of my favorite aspects of the new museum is what I jokingly refer to as the Gallery of Useful Pots to Put Things In. It’s a splendidly lit set of cases surrounding an atrium, and the shelves are full of cups, bowls, pitchers, ewers and other items from a wide range of cultures. I’ve included a few of those items in the gallery immediately below.

A duck, perhaps?
Owl and duck, methinks.
A cool pitcher with a long beak.
L-R, a bowl with a goose-necked bird, a bowl with a bird, and an owl. Note how my hand and iPhone are reflected below the objects.

Throughout the galleries, I found several depictions of birds from up and down the centuries of human history. This gallery shows a few more.

Bronze ibis, Egypt (712-332 BCE)
Oinochoe (jug), Cypress, ca. 750-550 BCE
Owls, China, 2nd-1st century BCE
Birds top right, Snowy Morning, Japan, 1830
Crane detail, vase, Korea, 12th-13th century

One of my favorite paintings seen today was by a contemporary artist, Becky Suss. Her “August, 2016” work that takes up most of a wall includes a lamp featuring a base resembling a peregrine falcon.

Interior of a house, with love seats facing one another and a lamp with a large bird for a base.
“August 2016” by Becky Suss

What I’ve posted represents most of the birds I observed, but I’m sure there are more to discover on future visits, which will be frequent. The museum is free to all comers and is open daily, with the exception of a few major holidays. If you can’t make it to Princeton, the museum’s website has a rich trove of photos of its collections. 🦅

Eagles aplenty, and a visitor from the Arctic

My friend Jim and I crossed the Delaware River from Trenton this morning on a hunt for a rare visitor from the Arctic: a rough-legged hawk. Amazingly, we spotted the bird almost immediately, but the morning had much more in store for us.

The rough-legged hawk had been reported the previous few days hunting around the Penn Warner Club, a private fishing and recreation area at the south end of Morrisville, Pennsylvnia. The town is along the Delaware River roughly 30 miles north of Philadelphia.

View to the North from the club parking lot. We spotted the rough-legged hawk along the ridge line in the distance. Two red-tailed hawks perched on posts at the top of the hill.

As Jim and I drove into our target area on Bordentown Road, he spotted two bald eagles in a roadside tree –– a good omen. We turned to the road that would take us to a club parking lot and soon spotted a hawk-like bird perched on a pipe at the top of the ridge to our left. Pulling off to the side of the public road, we hopped out of the car and trained binoculars and cameras on the bird.

Rough-legged hawk perched atop a post with a hose connecting to it.
Rough-legged hawk.

After a minute or two, the bird flew off. We checked our camera screens and got our proof. The bird had a mostly white face with a white bib above a dark body — a rough-legged hawk.

We drove to the club parking lot a short way ahead and spotted a few more bald eagles in trees along the way. Once at the lot, we spotted four bald eagles atop a power transmission tower, and I watched as a fifth eagle harassed one of them. Both flew off.

At another point, we saw three eagles atop another tower, and there were many others alone or together in trees and on an ice sheet on a lake off the road.

The eagles were a mix of adults and juveniles, so many young ones that I was heartened for the future of the bird that once was on the precipice of extinction.

Bald eagle standing atop a power transmission tower, with icicles hanging from the crossbeam on which it was perched.
Mature bald eagle up high, atop a power tower.

A passing motorist told us there were more bald eagles down the road, and we confirmed that as we drove south. We stopped near a bridge that spanned a cove where we saw a coot, buffleheads and ruddy ducks. Farther out on the water were hundreds of common mergansers, with many others flying overhead.

Male “gray ghost” Northern harrier standing on the ground.

Toward the end of our two-hour visit, we spotted red-tailed hawks, male and female Northern harriers, and an American kestrel. Jim’s hunch that a bird we saw atop one of the power towers was a peregrine falcon turned out to be accurate once we got home and checked our photos.

We figure we saw around 30 eagles, an astonishing total and the largest number I’ve ever seen. My previous high total was 27 bald eagles I saw at Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska, 30 years ago.

I gained a lifer in the rough-legged hawk, which we spotted a second time on our way back up the road. It flew from one post to another, so we drove a bit to see it clearly and closer on the second post. As soon as I pulled my camera out of the car, the bird flew off. I believe Jim got a shot of that, and we decided it was time for us to head off, too. 🦅

Note: the Penn Warner Club is private, members only, as signs near the gates to several sections plainly note. Jim and I parked briefly on the sides of the road and at a few pullouts. Several other birders parked with us at the parking lot by the club’s main entrance. We did not venture farther onto club land and don’t recommend it for others.

American tree sparrows are back

While pulling into the Pole Farm parking lot the other day, I declared my goal: to spot an American tree sparrow. Reports of the winter-visit birds had been trickling in on e-Bird, but I’d yet to see one this season.

I was in luck, however, on this day-before-Christmas visit. I’d brought along my friend Jim, who has logged more species in Mercer County than anyone on e-Bird and has near-instant recognition of any bird appearing.

We were hoping to spot a long-eared owl, as we’d seen one in the woods the week before. We checked in the areas where we’ve seen long-eared owls in years past but couldn’t find any.

Jim spotted a hermit thrush at the old AT&T Building One site, and the bird parked in a cedar tree long enough for us to get good looks at it.

Hermit thrush seen from below. Its perched on a cedar tree branch, its spotted chest and eye ring clearly shown.
The hermit thrush, which we heard calling repeatedly before finding it.

As we exited the woods and headed down the trail back to the car, I spotted a few sparrows to my left and started shooting. Jim quickly made the ID: American tree sparrows — eureka!

Amid a tangle of small tree branches, an American tree sparrow looks toward the sun.
One of the tree sparrows. From this angle, you can just make out its bicolored beak, black upper and yellow lower.

I’ve made a couple of quick visits to the Pole Farm late in the day lately in the hope of spotting short-eared owls, which typically emerge just before dawn and at sunset. I had spotted one earlier this month, but it appeared to be an anomaly.

As one of my other birder friends noted, you can tell the owls aren’t out because the Cold Soil Road parking lot isn’t full at 4 p.m. as it is when the shorties are hunting in force.

Even though I’ve seen only the one short-eared owl, I have seen a few Northern harriers at sunset, including the “gray ghost” male. I haven’t captured the ghost on camera yet this season, but I’ll keep trying. 🦅

The Canada goose stands on guard

From the fall through the winter and into spring, the golf course that sprawls just beyond our property line becomes a haven for Canada geese. I daresay the fairways of Cobblestone Creek Country Club see more takeoffs and landings in one day than Pearson Airport in Toronto.

My wife and I generally are amused by the geese that nibble on the grass. Occasionally, they get crosswise and one will charge another for a few moments until harmony is restored.

The geese spread out on the first three holes of the golf course’s back nine that we can see out our kitchen and dining room windows. We have a fascinating vantage point from which to watch their behavior.

Upon approach to the course, the geese typically arrive in waves of wedges. The leader of the first vee circles over the course, apparently checking for the best spot to land. Once that group touches down, others follow quickly. Within a few minutes 200-300 geese are munching away on the ground.

What we find particularly fascinating is that “sentinel geese” set up at the edges of the foraging swarms. Most of the time the sentinels squat on the ground, although sometimes they stand briefly, as does the goose in the center foreground of the photo topping this post. While most of the flock eats contentedly, the sentinel geese face away and watch for the approach of anything untoward.

Occasionally, anything untoward means a pickup truck from the golf course maintenance crew that rolls down the cart path to scare the geese off. As one, the geese squawk raucously, rise and fly away en masse — likely to another part of the course.

Canada geese migrating over the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm in October 2020.

U.S. federal law has protected Canada geese for more than a century, and New Jersey also has its own protections for them. The species is thriving today, with year-round resident and migratory populations. While they don’t rank high on the colorful-feather scale, Canada geese are part of our natural ecosystem, and I’m glad and grateful that they enliven our days. 🦅

For the solstice, a harrier at sunset

Today is the first full day of winter, and I found time in the afternoon to visit Trenton marsh while still buzzing about my visits to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm yesterday.

I joined a group of birders there Saturday morning hoping to spot for a second time the wayward Townsend’s warbler that had been foraging in the cedars since mid-week. Alas, I had no luck with the warbler, which by now I hope is on its way west to its normal range beyond the Rocky Mountains.

The sun shone most of the day, and I went back to the Pole Farm yesterday afternoon about 4 p.m., hoping to see and photograph Northern harriers and short-eared owls, which emerge around sunset. While I would spot none of the latter, the first of three harriers appeared to the west.

As I started tracking and shooting it, I was aware that I had a slim hope for a shot of it transiting the setting sun. I was so focused on tracking the bird that I didn’t realize it flew almost directly overhead before flying out of sight.

Two other harriers emerged but were too far off even to snap a frame. Accepting that I got what I was going to get, I headed home to see what my camera had captured. Most of the shots were fuzzy or overly dark, but I found two frames that I felt worth sharing.

I typically aim to get a strong image of a bird first, putting its context in nature second. Given the challenging light and the onset of the winter solstice, I chose for the top of this post a moody wide shot of the harrier flying across the field in front of me. The bird’s wingtips are highlighted by the setting sun, and the bare trees in the background help convey the mood of the moment: a chilly few minutes before sundown at the solstice.

I include below a second image of the harrier backlit by the sun, which was moments away from dropping fully below the horizon. 🦅

Wings backlit by the setting sun, a Northern harrier flies in front of bare trees at the back of a Pole Farm field.
Backlit by the sun, a Northern harrier soars over a field.

A rare Pole Farm visitor from the west: a Townsend’s warbler

We had a bit of birding excitement this week when a Townsend’s warbler was spotted at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. Word got out Wednesday afternoon, and I hoped when I’d be able go to the park on Thursday that the bird would still be around.

I got to the park around 9 a.m. and, judging by the unusually high number of vehicles in the parking lot, guessed that the warbler was the reason.

With my new knee still settling in, I picked my way carefully up the snow-covered central path and soon spotted a few birders near the entrance to the woods. They reported that the Townsend’s warbler was indeed still in residence and that they were waiting for it to reappear in the nearby cedars.

I chatted with a few other birders a bit farther up the path, then came back to the group at the edge of the woods. After a bit, I decided it would be best to head back to the car. As I left, I told the group that my departure would increase the odds of the bird coming back.

I had gone maybe 50 yards down the path when I heard a commotion: the bird was back! Some newly arriving birders and I quick-stepped up the trail and spotted the bird flitting about the cedars.

I saw it pop up several times, but I wasn’t able to a photo. I took the unusual step of asking Google Gemini to create a banner image for this post.

I knew the Townsend’s warbler was rare for the Pole Farm, but until reading up on it on the All About Birds website, I didn’t realize how far from home it was. This is a West Coast bird in North America, so I can only imagine the journey it took to get here and how confused it likely is on its surroundings.

I don’t know if the bird stuck around today but I wish it safe passage home whenever conditions are favorable. 🦅