Awesome: Harriers in aerial maneuvers by the setting sun

What inspired man to take flight? I had a flash of inspiration this afternoon while watching two Northern harriers joust in the golden light of the setting sun at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

Watching two female Northern harriers playing on the steady breeze over the main fields brought to mind Icarus, who in Greek mythology strapped on wax wings and took to the sky.

Icarus flew too high, and the sun melted his wings, sending him to his doom. The harriers today were not beset by such. They soared and dove, twisting around one another every few minutes as I watched in awe.

I had my camera trained on them for much of the time, most of it with them flying at a distance that outstripped my ability to get a crisp, well-lit shot. But I did manage to get a few shots of the two of them in one frame. At one point, they circled above me, but for most of my half-hour visit they flew in the distance.

Two Norrhern harriers fly in close proximity to one another.
Two female harriers fly overhead.

Three other harriers were dashing about, including a “gray ghost.” I managed one mediocre shot of him, but there was no doubting that I’d ID’d the male of the species.

The harriers were the only birds I spotted. Every other critter was hunkered down, as far as I could tell. But no matter — watching the harriers at play was worth the time. I took away a few mediocre photos and stirring memories. 🦅

Northern harrier turns in the sky.
Not great, but the best I could get in the diminishing sunlight.

Eastern drought seems bad for birds

Although we had some rain overnight Sunday into Monday, we’ve had an extended drought here in the New York-Philadelphia region. Wildfires are burning here and there at a time of year when they shouldn’t be a concern.

Not a puddle is to be had at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm or many of my other birding haunts in and around Princeton. In the Dyson Tract along the Delaware and Raritan canal, the marsh that should be luring mallards and gadwalls back for the cold months is stunningly dry.

Fortunately, there’s Abbott Marsh on the Trenton-Hamilton border. I drove down there over the weekend and was able to spot and photograph a good number of mallards and Northern pintails, such as the one floating atop this post.

Three Canada geese standing in shallow water.
Drought or no, Canada geese are always with us. Here are three in Trenton marsh, where the water level is noticeably lower than it should be.

For a change of pace, I headed on Sunday morning to the Van Nest wildlife reserve, which is tucked in behind the dam that created Mercer Lake at Mercer County Park. I didn’t spot any waterfowl in the streams that run through the heavily wooded refuge, but white-throated sparrows were singing all around me and what may have been three pileated woodpeckers were chattering away.

On my way back to my car, a swamp fox sparrow perched just ahead of me and gave me an opportunity to take its portrait. [Editor’s note: My friend Mark just tipped me that I misidentified the bird below as a swamp sparrow when, in fact, it was a fox sparrow. That information blows up this next, concluding paragraph, but I’d rather be accurate than clever.]

While swamps themselves are suffering these days, it’s good to know that swamp sparrows are hanging around, hoping just as we humans are for a good drenching or two to chase away the drought. 🦅

Fox sparrow perched on a curved tree branch.
Fox sparrow at Van Nest Wildlife Refuge
Side view of fox sparrow showing streaking on its breast.
Here’s another look at that same fox sparrow. The streaking on its breast is one of the field marks that distinguishes it from a swamp sparrow, which has lighter streaking.

On standard time, a five-sparrow day

It was time to “fall back” today as the United States reverted to standard time, giving us an extra hour of sleep or an extra hour to seize or squander. I have been looking forward to the switch, which gives me more time in the morning to bird ahead of work.

I headed to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm about 7:20 a.m., with the sun fully up and flooding the fields and trees. For the first 30 minutes, it seemed the birds were sleeping in. I saw not a one for the first half mile of my walk toward the old AT&T Building One site.

There, things perked up. With the high-pitched call of a white-throated sparrow sounding nearby, I trained my camera onto what I thought was another white-throated sparrow munching in the fronds in some tall grass. The bird was partially obscured, and I struggled to focus. When I checked my images at home, that bird turned out to be a swamp sparrow, and the best shot of the lot tops this post.

Birding buddy Bill showed up and soon spotted a fox sparrow in an evergreen tree. As I started pulling up my camera, off the bird went. Nearby, a field sparrow was in a cedar tree where a few cedar waxwings were picking at berries.

Spotting four sparrows is not unusual for me at the Pole Farm, with the most likely combination being song, savannah, white-throated and white crowned. Oddly, today I neither saw nor heard a song sparrow or savannah. I was content with those I did see.

At home I saw the usual gaggle of house sparrows fluttering at our tube feeder, and I saw the first white-throated sparrow of the season perched there, too.

While the swamp sparrow photo is sharp, most of the other images I took today were not. I’m still adjusting to my new Canon R7 camera, but I made an important discovery. Yesterday afternoon I took the Sigma telephoto lens off and switched to my old Canon kit zoom lens. Once that was on the adapter, the camera sprang to life when I tripped the “on” switch. A-ha! The problem with the camera taking multiple attempts to turn on must be a bug on the Sigma side.

Also, I headed out this morning with the camera battery at about 75 percent full. It died after about 45 minutes as Bill and I came upon three hermit thrushes in the woods. One was particularly cooperative, staying in front of us for several minutes. I had enough time to switch to a spare battery, which brought me the shot below. 🦅

Hermit thrush perched on a tree branch.
A hermit thrush perches on a tree branch.

Twitchers’ reward: a sandhill crane

Over the past several days, several birders have sighted a sandhill crane or two at the Miry Run area (a.k.a. Dam Site 21) that touches Hamilton, Robbinsville and West Windsor, New Jersey. The site is a 15-minute drive from home. When my friend Laura texted me that she was going to try to find the bird late this afternoon, I eagerly responded that I’d leave work early to pick her up.

After parking, we took the short walk up to where the dam embankment begins. We hadn’t even begun to climb when off to my right I spotted the crane in some tall grass.

We lost sight of it almost immediately, but Laura spied it again after she headed up the embankment. I lumbered up to join her and had a clear view of the bird. It was preening itself at the edge of small pond below the spillway.

The bird was in the shade, and I had trouble getting a clear shot at first. Eventually my camera latched onto the bird, and I managed to get a few decent shots.

This was my first sighting of a sandhill crane in New Jersey, as the birds only appear during migration and only scarcely. Although a lifer for Laura, this was not my first sandhill encounter.

On a business trip to Grand Island, Nebraska, about 40 years ago, I stopped along the Platte River during mid-March when the sandhills (named for the Sandhills to the north of the river) were congregating during migration. I saw hundreds of them, if not thousands. I didn’t have a camera or binoculars with me, but the sight and sound of them were overwhelming and unforgettable. Some day I’ll go back.

The crane’s species name is Antigone canadensis, referring to Canada and a tragic figure in Greek mythology. Sophocles’ play “Antigone” — rife with incest, family feuding and suicide — is nonetheless my favorite play from Greek literature. I’ve read that masterpiece in Greek, and my copy of the book containing it remains on my shelves today.

That got me to thinking. My collection of bird books is nearly equal in number to my old classics texts from college.

I was happy to add the crane to my New Jersey life list. I wasn’t able to get out this morning, but the crane is a good start to my sightings for November. For good measure, we also saw a Cooper’s hawk, great blue heron, two pied-billed grebes, a coot, some vultures and heard a belted kingfisher. 🦅

A rare capture of a common bird: the Carolina wren

While I can almost always count on hearing a Carolina wren on my visits to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, it’s a rare day when I see one and even rarer when I’m able to get a photo.

I routinely hear and see these tubby little birds at home. I have several photos of them eating at our feeders or perched on our patio furniture. I’m always impressed by the decibel-to-body size ratio of their beautiful song.

In the wild, that cheerful song carries far through the woods and over the fields. But to my eyes, these wrens offer only fleeting glimpses. I first recorded spotting a Carolina wren at the Pole Farm on Oct. 28, 2020. Over the past four years, I’ve recorded sightings of them 269 times, a total of 449 individuals.

This morning, I heard the last two in that count. The second one was singing in a young oak tree on the trail just past the observation deck. The bird was tucked in, sitting on a branch, surrounded by beautiful red leaves. I wasn’t positive it was a wren as I raised my camera, and I was able to get off a few shots before it flew off.

Carolina wren in a tree, surrounded by branches and red leaves.

I played the images back, and the bird’s curved bill and a strong eye line left no doubt that I’d captured a Carolina wren on my card. One wide shot tops this post, and a cropped version is inset.

These birds bring joy, and I thank this little one for staying still just long enough for me to preserve the memory in pixels. 🦅

The early bird gets the berries

While I had trouble the other day getting a clear shot of a yellow-rumped warbler eating berries, I was able to get one this morning at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

I can’t say whether it was one of the birds I saw Sunday, but it was the same tree that the bird was on a little after 8’clock. That yellow-rumped warbler was the most exotic species I’d see in about an hour on an otherwise quiet morning.

I arrived at the park as dawn was breaking at 7:25 a.m. I’m looking forward to our return to standard time over the weekend. I’ll be able to have more time and daylight to go birding each morning before hustling home and getting off to work.

Sunset will come an hour earlier, too, but that doesn’t affect me because I rarely get home before 5 p.m. most days. On late fall and winter weekends, I like the earlier sunsets because I can finish birding soon enough to get home at a reasonable hour for dinner.

Our late afternoon sunsets in December correspond to the arrival of short-eared owls and perhaps a few long-eared ones. It won’t be long before that spectacle returns. 🦅

So close: a day of ‘almost’ shots

Take a look at the yellow-rumped warbler topping this post. The bird is in profile high up in a tree, eying a cluster of berries. A moment later, the bird would have one of those berries in its beak, but that shot was blurred.

Another frame shows the bird with its beak plunged into the bunch, a shot a split second too early or too late to show peak action.

Yellow-rumped warbler poking its beak into a cluster of berries on a tree branch.
It’s sharp, but this image misses the proper berry-selecting moment.

Such was my day today in two outings, the morning at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm and the afternoon at the Dyson Tract along the Delaware and Raritan canal.

I didn’t get a killer shot but I did get more acclimated to my Canon EOS R7. I’m getting the hang of the electronic viewfinder and the focusing indicators. My new backup batteries are charging , so I’m no longer worried about running out of power.

One of the ironies of having this mirrorless camera is that with its blazingly fast electronic shutter, I’m shooting dozens more frames than before but my percentage of “in focus” photos is dramatically down.

At the Dyson Tract, I had plenty of white-throated sparrows to shoot, but they were distant and tricky. They zipped in and out of branches and tucked behind leaves. The crispest shot I got of one shows the bird obscured by a leaf and branch..

White-throated sparrow perched on a branch, partially obscured by a branch and a green leaf.
The catchlight is nice, but that leaf and branch detract significantly from the photo.

Merlin gave me a few hits on swamp sparrows, which I have scrupulously not posted on e-Bird because I want to see one and note a confirmed sighting. I didn’t pick one out in the field, but my camera card proved I had seen and recorded one. The two shots verified ID but were not worth saving or sharing.

For a few minutes I staked out a chokeberry bush while a song sparrow perched in the purple branches. It looked left, looked back and looked right but it never came out fully onto one of the branches. What’s below is the best I could get.

Song sparrow perched a mid the red branches of a chokeberry bush.
Song sparrow in the chokeberry bush.

Better photo days are ahead as I’m determined to improve my handling of my new camera. Thanks for reading along.

Giving my new Canon R7 a workout

I took today off from work in anticipation of great fall weather to give my new Canon EOS R7 camera a second-day workout. I’d taken the camera out to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm on Thursday morning. With the high-speed auto advance blazing, I shot 162 frames — maybe 10 of which were in focus.

Annoyingly, the camera kept shutting off every few minutes, forcing me to switch it off and on to get it to come to attention. Those shots also exhausted the battery, which had been charging overnight.

Scouring Google and YouTube for solutions to my power problems, I learned that a firmware update was available to fix problems with the camera restarting after power-offs. I also figured out how to lengthen the time it takes for the camera and the electronic viewfinder to power off.

This morning at the Pole Farm, the battery held up long enough to get me through a 90-minute outing and firing more than 200 frames. Some of them turned out relatively well, and for the first time since getting the camera I started to relax with it.

The Pole Farm highlights included a pair of hermit thrushes sunning themselves high up in a tree and a couple of opportunities to shoot Northern harriers.

Hermit thrush basking.
A Northern harries takes off from a tree branch.

Later in the morning, I headed to Trenton for a visit to John A. Roebling Park and the adjoining marsh. The birds were few but they were photogenic. Two great blue herons practically gave another birder and me a modeling session, one standing on a trail and the other (at top of post) perched on the wooden bridge that leads to the back island portion of the marsh.

I also took a few shots of a small bird low down amid some shady trees. The bird turned out to be a yellow-rumped warbler that proves the name is justified.

The myrtle yellow-rumped warbler, which briefly popped into a sunny spot.

Late in the afternoon, I went to the Pole Farm again for a short walk. Besides two female harriers, I also spotted the much less common male “gray ghost.” The photos proved the ID but aren’t sharp enough to share.

As the sun sets and I get ready to grill steaks for dinner, I’m pleased with how today’s outings went. I look forward to what the R7 and I can do as I get more accustomed to its sophisticated features. 🦅

A new Canon R7. Bring on the birds!

Well, it’s a start. The American robin topping this post was the first bird photo I was able to snap with my new Canon EOS R7 camera that arrived Monday. What followed was a series of unfortunate events.

The first was that the adapter I need to mount my older-generation lenses was delayed a day and delivered yesterday. After work, I fixed the adapter on the camera and mounted the kit lens from my old Canon Rebel XT. I took a few test shots of my wife and fiddled with the settings a bit before putting it away, anticipating a morning of birding today.

It was not to be. When I hit the trail at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm a little after sunrise, the camera would not turn on. Anguish. Worry. And maybe a few foul words uttered under my breath as another birder stopped to see what the problem was.

I drove home and put the battery on the charger. It was dead. Even though I’d charged it a full three hours before exploring the menus Monday evening and the battery meter was on full when I turned the camera off last night, the battery ran out of charge.

Leaving the battery on the charger for the day, I called Canon service when I got to my office. The very helpful and sympathetic Canon rep asked me a few questions and said that I would have done better to leave the battery on the charger overnight.

He advised me to see how things go for the next day or two. If the camera doesn’t perform, I should send it back to Amazon, although I have ordered two extra batteries.

Fortunately, when I got home from work a short while ago, the camera turned on when I inserted the battery, which had been on the charger for about 10 hours.

Moments later, I spotted a chickadee on the feeder near our living room window. I wasn’t quick enough to get a shot of the little cutie, but a couple of robins were just beyond our yard on one of the tees on the adjoining golf course.

The robin shot above was literally the first bird photo I took with the camera. The picture is one I’d never post under normal circumstances. I wouldn’t even save it. But I’ve placed it as a marker in anticipation of many good photos to come and a few laughs at my own expense.

I’ll go back out with the camera tomorrow morning — after the battery has had a good night’s sleep nestled in the charger. 🦅

My old camera comes out of retirement

With my Canon SL2 acting up (or rather, shutting down), I put my old Canon Rebel XT into service today. It did a creditable job, at least as long as the battery lasted.

Topping this post is a shot of a yellow-rumped/myrtle warbler that settled in a tree at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. Fully in the sun, the bird was perched amid the beautiful red leaves of a maple tree.

I took about two dozen photos as I made a loop around the park, and I was frustrated to see the battery level sink dangerously low and then expire. The battery didn’t last an hour, even with it shut off when no birds were within sight.

I charged the battery for a few hours and headed out at mid-afternoon to the Millstone River Impoundment in Princeton. This time, the battery level dropped to near zero within about 20 minutes. But not before I was able to sneak around some bushes and get a close-up profile of a great blue heron.

Considering that I was using a backup camera with unexpectedly low battery life, I’m pleased to have ended up with a couple of fine shots. The battery is back on the charger, and I’ll insert it into the XT for tomorrow’s outing.

Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out where I stashed that camera’s other battery. As for the SL2, my nearby camera shop could repair it, but I’m thinking instead it’s time to make the move to a mirrorless camera.

Great blue heron in profile, framed by tree leaves.
Great blue heron at the Millstone River Impoundment. I can’t say for sure, but I reckon it’s a resident.