Photo feast or famine while birding

Most of the time, I aim to post “day of” on my birding outings. Having spent 32 years in daily journalism, I put a high value on keeping things current. This post, however, leads with a photo that I shot the day before.

On Thursday, I posted the hawk take-off sequence I shot at Veterans Park in Hamilton, which I felt needed to be featured by itself. I held back on a posting a couple of shots I took earlier in the morning at John A. Roebling Park in Abbott Marshlands.

This morning, Friday, I made three stops and shot only a few photos. While I had multiple shots worthy of sharing yesterday, today was the opposite, with only a single song sparrow in focus. My other shots were of great egrets and other birds too far off to feature or even save.

I thus am presenting two of the photos I got Thursday at Roebling Park. The lead image of a great blue heron looking for something to eat while standing in Spring Lake is, in my estimation, one of my best shots of the year.

When photographing birds, you most often need to aim and fire quickly before the birds fly off. With the heron, I wasn’t so close as to spook it. I had time to find an angle at which to show off best the reflection on the water of the fall foliage on the far side of the lake. I took a few shots and then waited for the bird to turn its head to the right, giving me an opportunity for a strong profile shot.

I love shooting in the fall because the changing leaves make for great backdrops, and the sunlight often comes from a lower angle than the high suns of summer. For the heron photo, I was lucky, too, in that I walked clockwise around the lake instead of my usual counterclockwise route. Had I gone the usual way, the lighting would have been different, the reflection less and the bird may have been elsewhere.

As I made my way around the lake, I came to the bridge that takes visitors to the back island at the park. I decided against going that way and instead went to an opening in the trees at the edge of the marsh.

Across the way I spotted a goose-sized bird with a white breast lurking in the reeds. Still fuzzy on duck field marks, I could not make an on-the-spot ID. Once I got the photos up on screen at home, I realized I’d found a Northern pintail, my first of the season. In its pose, it looks distinguished, does it not?

A Northern pintail turns its head to the side while standing amid the reeds in a marsh.
Northern pintail in the marsh.

We’ll have a couple more weeks of fall color to enhance our enjoyment of the outdoors and the photos we take. While I hope for more days like yesterday when lots of fine photo opportunities presented themselves, I can still appreciate days like today when there wasn’t much to shoot. Feast or famine? Either way, it’s fun. 🦅

Getting a hawk as it takes off

With another gorgeous fall morning aborning, I made two birding stops today. After looping Spring Lake at Abbott Marshlands, I headed to Veterans Park in Hamilton to see if I might find a few late-arriving birds to add to my October log.

Several killdeer were plucking at the edges of the lake, and I took several shots as I walked along the trail. Looking ahead, I spotted a woman with a camera and long lens. I thought it might be my friend Nancy but it turned out to be one of her friends, Antoinette, whom I had not previously met. Like me, she was hoping to catch one of the bald eagles that regularly visits the park and fishes in the lake.

No eagle was to be seen, but we had a nice chat before she headed back up the trail and I moved over to the lake edge to take photos of another killdeer. A few minutes later, Antoinette called out and waved for me to join her up on the trail.

It didn’t take long for me to spot what she was seeing. A red-tailed hawk was perched on a tree branch, out in the open and clearly lit by the sun, as shown by the photo topping this post. Antoinette and I stood side by side, shooting photos of the hawk, which seemed unperturbed even as a dog walker came by.

When I was at the Pole Farm on Wednesday, I missed my chance to shoot a Northern harrier taking off from its perch. Looking at the hawk, I thought I might have another chance at a take-off. I pulled back my zoom lens to give myself a wider view.

Smart move.

Moments later, the bird stirred and flew to our left, landing in another nearby tree. I took several shots of its short flight, hoping my Canon’s autofocus would get a sharp frame or two.

By golly, it did. Here’s the sequence:

Hawk scrunches down and opens its wings as it prepares to take off.
The hawk scrunches down, readying to spring off the branch.
The hawk stretches out and up, extending its wings upward.
Wings up!
The hawk springs off the branch, its yellow talons a couple of inches above the branch. Its left talon casts a shadow on the branch.
We have lift-off!
The hawk rises as its wings flatten out.
Off goes the hawk, on its way to a nearby tree.

Once it reached the other tree, the hawk stayed for a minute or so before getting spooked and flying out of sight across the park.

With the excitement of the moment lingering, Antoinette and I walked back to our cars, pleased with our good fortune.

I’m grateful that I got a nice sequence of the hawk taking off, but moreover for meeting a new friend. May our paths cross often. 🦅

The Northern harriers are back where they belong: the Pole Farm

Early this year, it seemed that fewer Northern harriers than usual were hunting in the fields of the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. I’m happy to report that as fall is in full swing, the harriers are back and reliably on view most days.

This morning, for example, one of the harriers was parked on a birdhouse as I made my way up the central path. I took a few shots through the grasses and moved closer to take a few more.

At that distance, the bird was giving me some serious side-eye.

A female Northern harrier perches on a bird box and looks to her right. Tall brown grasses are in front of her, and red and orange foliage is behind her.
Ms. Harrier watches cautiously as I approach.

As I stepped forward, the bird flew off, turning her white rump to me, as you can see from the shot topping this post.

After I walked through the woods and re-emerged onto the central path on my way to my car, I watched two harriers circling and darting around each other. They were too far off for me to get a decent photo, so I simply watched and enjoyed the aerial acrobatics.

One of the aspects of Mercer Meadows I love is the variety of birds: from warblers and songbirds to raptors like the harriers and hawks.

I walked the Reed-Bryan Farm side of the park Tuesday, and a red-tailed hawk was perched on one of the climbing rungs high up on the last remaining antenna pole from the decades when the land was dotted with hundreds of them for AT&T radio telephone transmissions.

Red-tailed hawk perches on the pole. Note the cables behind the bird and connected to the eyelet on the left side of the pole. For much of the 20th century, cables like that draped the Pole Farm poles to form antennas used for radio transmission of international phone calls.

Another highlight from this morning was getting to see the moon over the meadows. I took a few photos at the Pole Farm and Reed-Bryan sides of the park. While continuing to hope that our stretch of wonderful autumn days continues, I’ll close with one of those moon shots. 🦅

A nearly full moon shines in a bright blue sky. Tree branches with red and orange leaves frame the moon.
The morning moon hovers over Reed-Bryan Farm.

A birding walk through fall foliage at the Pole Farm

Autumn days can be glorious, and today is a stunner. Tied up early in the morning, I got out to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm about 11 a.m. and made a two-mile loop in just over an hour.

My main purpose in going was birding, of course, and at that relatively late arrival time I expected bird activity to be modest at best. As I headed up the central trail in brilliant sunshine, I marveled at the fall color ahead of me. At Latitude 40° 17′ 45″ N here in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, the color must be at or near its peak.

The top image shows a view featuring a red staghorn sumac just off the trail before I entered the woods, where more splendor awaited.

A trail through the woods lined with trees on both sides. The sun lights up a maple with red-orange leaves to the right and golden yellow leaves on trees to the left.
The trail through the woods, with sunlight illuminating the tree tops.

As I made my way along the trail immediately above, I walked for a while without hearing or seeing any birds. Farther along, I spotted a downy woodpecker working his way up from the base of a tree a few feet off the trail.

A male downy woodpecker, with a red spot at the back of its head, has something small in its slightly open beak as it clings to the bark on the side of a tree.
Mr. Downy with a bite of something in his beak.

The bird was so close to me that I had to zoom out to get his entire body in the frame.

A few yards up the trail, white-throated sparrows started streaking between the trees and crossing in front of me. A few settled in trees at shoulder level or below, but the birds were shrouded by branches. I had to settle for binocular views instead of photos.

As I continued walking, I took more photos of the trees showing a beautiful palette of vivid reds, sunny oranges and golden yellows. On the final leg of my walk, I thought it might be nice to record video to give a fuller sense of what I was seeing.

Nice as it is, the foliage in the video wasn’t nearly the best of what I encountered. But it does give a sense of what it was like around noon EDT.

I’ll try to remember to take more videos on my birding journeys. Maybe I’ll even get footage that includes a bird or two!

For my e-Bird log on this outing, I entered 15 species, including five types of sparrows and 17 American robins. The fall foliage alone was worth the walk. 🦅

Surprise sightings aided by e-Bird’s photo recognition software

It’s no surprise to see a song sparrow in my neck of the woods. They appear regularly at our feeders at home and in the parks and woods across this part of the country. This morning, I caught the one topping this post near the parking lot at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

While most of my reports contain “the usual suspects,” I’m always delighted when I get an unexpected bird, even more so when e-Bird software provides the ID. Today at the Pole Farm, while hoping to find warblers at the old AT&T Building One site, I spotted what turned out to be a grasshopper sparrow.

I thought I was shooting a field sparrow when I squeezed off the shot and again when I brought the image up on screen at home. Once I copied the image into Apple Photos, the grasshopper ID came up. Could that be right, I thought?

Grasshopper sparrow in a tree. I usually spot them in field grasses.

Still thinking field sparrow, I uploaded the image into e-Bird as such. The e-Bird software immediately flagged it as a grasshopper sparrow. With its huge database of birds and their photos, e-Bird’s image recognition ability has improved greatly over the last few years. For that, I am extremely grateful.

Two days ago at the Pole Farm, I looked high up into a tree and spotted a woodpecker-like bird. I shot a few photos, then looked at the image on my camera screen. Oh my — that looks like a yellow-bellied sapsucker.

Yellow-bellied sapsucker. There’s a slight yellow wash on its belly.

I was reasonably confident I’d made the proper ID, and once I loaded the image into e-Bird I got confirmation. I can count on one hand without the number of yellow-bellied sapsuckers I’ve logged on e-Bird, so getting that confirmation was a thrill.

On Wednesday, I used a double dose of bird recognition software to make an identification on another bird I rarely see.

I was looking for warblers at the Building One oval and had my Merlin app running on my iPhone. I heard a sharp two note cry and watched Merlin light up with “sharp-shinned hawk.”

I immediately looked up and spotted a hawk flying above me land near the top of a tall tree. The bird’s back was to me, and eventually the bird turned its head to the right just enough for me to get two shots showing its beak and right eye.

Sharp-shinned hawk, with its squared-off tail showing.

I find distinguishing sharp-shinned hawks from Cooper’s hawks nearly impossible in the field, so I waited until I got home and loaded one of the photos into e-Bird before concluding I’d indeed gotten a sharpie.

As much as I try to make ID’s in the field using only my eyes and memory of field marks, I’m glad to have the technological tools to help track what I observe in the field. That’s why I thank and support the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

I went birding in LA, dude!

A memorial service for a dear friend brought me to Los Angeles last week, and I took advantage of an opportunity to do some birding in the Golden State.

I flew from Newark Liberty airport to LAX on Wednesday, landing just after noon. My original plan was to drive to one of the beaches before checking into my cheapo motel in suburbran Alhambra. Instead, I went straight to the hotel and doubled back to Dodger Stadium to watch the Milwaukee Brewers defeat the LA Dodgers in Game Three of the National League Championship Series.

The next morning, I woke up early and headed to nearby Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in the Montecito Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. I’d seen e-Bird reports of many birds observed there and was also intrigued by reports of excellent views of downtown Los Angeles.

The park did not disappoint.

Fortified by an early breakfast at Winchell’s Donuts, I arrived at the park about 10 minutes before sunrise and was immediately greeted by several common ravens croaking their ownership of the territory.

The fun was only just beginning. I walked up a steep paved trail, keeping my eyes and ears open for birds I’d add to my life list. I’d revisit the park again Friday morning before heading back to LAX for my flight home.

What did I observe? For one, red-breasted nuthatches, relatively scarce in my home territory in New Jersey, vastly outnumbered white-breasted nuthatches. Yellow-rumped warblers were seemingly everywhere, although I had traveled without my camera and zoom lens. With only binoculars and my iPhone camera, I could not say for sure that I bagged the yellow-throat Audubon’s warbler subspecies.

One of my main hopes was to spot a red-shafted Northern flicker. I got one on the first visit, and then saw the red shafts fully the second day as one of them flew overhead. Also on that second day, I got a fleeting glimpse of a Nuttal’s woodpecker as it flew into a palm tree. Hoping for a spotted towhee, I struck out.

I did spot a wrentit, with its long tail, and California towhees. The Merlin app on both days offered repeated hits on bushtits, but I didn’t record them on e-Bird. Those birds are common enough in California that I felt I should see one before logging it.

On Friday morning, I spotted a Western bluebird on picnic table bench, then found a couple more foraging on the ground nearby.

Yellowp-rumped warblers and Western bluebirds were bathing in the big puddle below the caution sign just off the park’s parking lot.

All told, I added eight birds to my life list. They included a red-whiskered bulbil (fleeting glance), Bewick’s wren, mountain chickadee, a California scrub jay and a couple of black phoebes.

Suprisingly, I only encountered one other birder on the trails. He was waiting for a friend at the Audubon visitor’s center and gave me a few pointers on the trails on that side of the park.

He had just spotted an Allen’s hummingbird, which would elude me. But on the trail 20 minutes later, I spotted an Anna’s hummingbird helicoptering above the trees.

One other note: I spotted several dark-eyed juncos in the park, an odd sensation. Juncos are harbingers of winter in the East, and it was strange to see them in the 70-degree sunshine of Los Angeles.

All in all, it was a memorable trip. I only wish I had high-quality photos to share. 🦅

Checking out a new place to bird: Heritage Preserve

I made on of my usual trips to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm this morning, and in the afternoon I decided to try a place I had not yet visited. About five miles from my home and just off Interstate 295 near the Pennington-Ewing border is the Heritage Preserve.

It’s a 66-acre tract of former farmland that the Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space acquired in 2008. It features a trail of about one mile and three quarters that loops through deciduous forest.

A wide grass trail leads past shrubs and trees on both sides of it, with larger trees in the near distance ahead.
The trail up from the parking lot, just before it splits for the loop through the woods.

The trail is wide, grass-covered at first and thick with tree roots once you enter the woods. Preserve planners installed double and triple plank crossings over the many wet spots that were evident today after yesterday’s heavy rain.

Informational signs on the preserve’s history, trees, deer, wildflowers, etc. are posted along the trail, which is easy to follow with plenty of white blazes on trees.

Trail through the woods. Note the white blaze on a tree just left of the path.

So what about birds? I arrived a little after 3 p.m., not expecting to see many. I was surprised to spot decent activity early in my walk. A turkey vulture flew overhead, blue jays squawked and swamp and probably other sparrows flitted about. I also got a yellow-rumped warbler on camera.

I didn’t see many birds as I got deeper into the trail, but I spotted a Northern flicker (shown at top of post) high up in a tree on my way back to the car, the only one parked in the lot off Reed Road.

The preserve website says there’s space for five or six vehicles. I guess that’s possible, but it would be tight.

I had limited time and did only a half-mile out and back. I’m hankering to return at a time when more birds are about. I also think this would be a great place to take kids. 🦅

The Fall Big Day really was a big day

Saturday was the Fall Big Day for birding, organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and I did my part. Yellow-rumped warblers ruled in the stops I made in Mercer County, and in tribute I’ve posted a photo of one of them atop this post.

I started the day at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, where I spent a good chunk of the hour-and-a-quarter visit trying to get a fix on ruby-crowned kinglets that were zipping about the old AT&T Building One site. I was relieved to get a couple of in-focus shots of those cute little devils, who are in continuous motion.

A ruby-crowned kinglet looks out from its perch in a tree with green leaves. The bird's head is tilted slightly to its left, giving it a quizzical expression.
In a rare moment of stillness, a ruby-crowned kinglet gazes out toward a few birders.

Nearby, a couple of Eastern phoebes presented themselves in the trees. One obligingly came into the open on a drooping branch, giving me an opportunity to squeeze off a couple of shots.

An Eastern phoebe leans forward on a bowed branch, its beak slightly open. The bird has an olive cap and white breast with light green patches.
An Eastern phoebe leans forward, a moment before taking flight.

Other birds I put in the “usual suspects” cateogry revealed themselves at the Pole Farm, including a female Northern harrier hunting far across one of the main fields but not a yellow-rumped warbler. That was about to change.

Female Northern flicker sitting on a tree branch. Her beige breast has black spots and the undersides of her tail feathers are yellow.
Female Northern flicker

Later in the morning, I walked the trails at John A. Roebling Park in Abbott Marshlands. I met my friend Jim there, and he had seen several yellow-rumped warblers by the parking lot. We were hoping to see a few ducks in the marsh or on the Spring Lake, but none were to be found, not even a mallard.

But we did see plenty of yellow-rumped warblers on our walk, which featured a bald eagle flyover and Northern flickers a gaggle of robins in the trees on the back island.

Jim drove off from the parking lot, and I stuck around for a few extra minutes, hoping to catch some of the warbler action he had seen just before I’d arrived.

That was a good move. Not only did I see a few yellow-rumped warblers, but I also unknowingly managed a few shots of Cape May warbler. This one was my favorite shot of the day.

A Cape May warbler sits on a tree branch with green leaves. In the bird's beak is a winged insect about to be consumed.
A Cape May warbler is about to munch on an insect in its beak.

Late in the afternoon, I headed back to Mercer Meadows on the Reed-Bryan Farm side of the park. Savannah and swamp sparrows filled the fields, and I soon spotted a yellow-rumped warbler.

A yellow-rumped warbler looks upward while perched on a small branch of a bare tree.
Yellow-rumped warbler in a tree at Reed-Bryan Farm.

On my way back up the trail to my car, I took a break and sat on a bench, hoping some of the sparrows would come to me. They did not, but my friend Jim wandered down the trail. We spent some time watching sparrows — Savannah, song, swamp and one Lincoln’s — fly in front of us.

Jim also spotted a palm warbler, and I was happy to get this shot of it.

A palm warbler perches in a bare tree. The bird has green and black striped wings, a yellow rump and a yellow eyeline across its dark olive green head.
Palm warbler at Reed-Bryan Farm.

The Reed-Bryan nightcap was a great way to end the day. Although I didn’t accumulate any staggering species totals, I was happpy to contribute to the Fall count and get a few good shots of birds that lighten my spirits. 🦅

Sparrows, a harrier and an unexpected owl highlight the weekend

We’re nearing the peak of fall migration, yet I found few warblers this weekend. Instead, I was treated to a variety of sparrows and — best of all — had as close an encounter with a Northern harrier as one could hope to have.

As I made my way up the central trail at the Mercer Meadows Pole farm this morning, I spotted a dark blob sitting on the path 100 yards or so ahead of me. Ordinarily, it would be an Eastern cottontail or a robin or two in such a spot.

As I walked closer and began taking photos, I realized that what was hunkered down on the ground was a female Northern harrier. The bird sat calmly as I approached and didn’t take off until I was 30 to 40 feet away.

Miss Harrier (I suspect she was a young one) flew up the trail but not far, landing on a wooden stake just off the trail.

The harrier, roughly 30 feet from me and seemingly unconcerned.

Again, I walked toward her, taking photos every 10 steps or so. I drew within 30 feet before she took to the sky, and I got the shot topping this post.

Getting so close to a raptor was a privilege and a thrill. I felt as if the bird had done me a favor. It was the highlight of the day and, in fact, the weekend.

There were other pleasures, to be sure. On Saturday, I took a meandering walk through Mercer Meadows starting on the Pole Farm side and crossing over to Reed-Bryan Farm. There, I noticed a lot of movement in a small tree and discovered three palm warblers flitting about.

A palm warbler sits on a tree branch. The bird has a brown cap, a black eye line and a yellow and bron head. Its yellow breast has vertical brown streaks.
Palm warbler

Earlier that morning, I’d seen a black-throated green warbler but wasn’t quick enough to get a photo.

Both days gave me several opportunities to get shots of sparrows. For once, song sparrows were in the minority. Savannah sparrows were abundant, and I also spotted a few swamp sparrows.

A Savannah sparrow grabs a black berry while perched in a tree.
Savannah sparrow grabs a berry.
A swamp sparrow perches amid the green-leafed branches of a tree.
Swamp sparrow tucked into a tree.

I wasn’t able to get a photo of one other highlight of the weekend, which came Friday evening as my wife and I stepped onto our patio before sunset. High above us in one our trees, a screech owl was calling.

We couldn’t see it but we were thrilled with another near encountered with one of our feathered friends. 🦅

Blue jays are magnificent

I guess it’s human nature that we value our common birds less than we do the uncommon or rare birds that come by. I was thinking while walking the Pole Farm trails yesterday that one such bird is the blue jay, common if not ubiquitous in the neighborhoods and the wilds of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.

With its natty combination of blue, black and white feathers, it is a beautiful bird. For birders in other parts of the world visiting the Eastern or Midwestern U.S., spotting a blue jay would be a priority and a thrill.

I was reminded of that this morning as I went to the Reed Bryan Farm side of Mercer Meadows, the part of the park that features the last pole standing from the old AT&T Pole Farm.

I had come down the trail with Gretchen, one of the best birders in the area, who pointed out the abundant Savannah, swamp and Lincoln’s sparrows on both sides of us. Before she turned back uphill to start a tour she was about to lead, we stopped just past the creek that passes under a bridge at a long line of trees.

Before crossing the bridge, we’d spotted scores of sparrows and seen a Merlin and a Cooper’s hawk tangle in the air. Once over the bridge, we spotted Downy and red-bellied woodpeckers and, high up on a bare tree, one of the several blue jays patrolling the area.

I couldn’t tell as I was shooting, but the jay had an acorn in its bill. Well lit by the sun, the bird struck a handsome pose.

A blue jay stands on the top branch of a tree while grasping an acorn it its beak.
Common but uncommonly beautiful, the blue jay holds an acorn atop a tree.

I have put a horizontal crop of the scene at the top of the post to go along with the vertical crop from another frame here.

Whichever way you frame one, the blue jay is a striking specimen. I’m glad to see them virtually every day without having to cross an ocean to do so. 🦅