Merry Christmas to all! I hope your holiday is a happy one.
After wrapping a few gifts yesterday afternoon, I went to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm and joined a few other photographers on an owl stakeout. I spent 90 minutes awaiting the arrival of short-eared owls. They didn’t show.
But amusingly, as I was standing in the cold, I noticed a few song sparrows foraging on the ground. One was almost underfoot. I marveled at what either was its fearlessness or its obliviousness to this homo sapiens a yardstick away.
I had to back up a step and pull my Zoom back to its 150mm setting to get the bird wholly in the viewfinder. The sparrow stuck around long enough that I had the presence of mind to shoot a bit of video.
The other photographers seemed to pay the sparrows no heed and they may not even have noticed them. I’m glad I did.
Today, I made a short trip to Veterans Park in Hamilton, where the lake is mostly frozen and snow covered. I saw some gulls and the gaggle of domestic geese who live at the park year-round. The one memorable sight was a bald eagle perched in a tree across the lake. I’m not sure its stern gaze was directed at me. I’ll give the bird the benefit of the doubt. 🦅
While we have yet to experience the packed-parking-lot frenzy of last winter, short-eared owls are back at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm and starting to show themselves before the sun goes down.
The “shorties” have been in the park for several weeks. Birders have reported seeing them before dawn and after sunset. We’ve been waiting for them to start flying ahead of sunset, and it seems we’re getting to that point.
On Sunday afternoon, I went out to the park about 45 minutes before sunset. I joined about 10 more photographers near the big curve where the paved Lawrence-Hopwell Trail starts its gentle slope up to the woods in the center of the park.
The owl in the field, far off.
One short-eared owl was sitting at the bottom of a spindly tree on the far side of the field that runs between the trail and Cold Soil Road. Other birders noted that the owl had been perched closer to the trail when they arrived around 3:30. A few of them got a good view and presumably some good photos of it.
Around 4:30, the bird took off to our left, sailing and dipping over the field. Eventually it flew back toward and beyond us. In the dwindling light, I was able to capture the shot topping this post. I can’t recall if the owl was landing or taking off.
Meanwhile, two other short-eared owls appeared over the field behind us. At one point, they were high and almost directly overhead when one of them charged the other.
Word will get around that the owls are back. I reckon more people wearing camouflage jackets and bearing long lenses will start showing up. Here’s hoping they behave themselves and stay on the trails.
Rangers are patrolling, and one showed up about 4:45 Sunday evening. A few of us photographers were nearly back to our cars when the ranger started rolling up the trail, telling people the park was closing.
If you’re hoping to see the owls yourself, please know that these magnificent wild creatures have their own schedules that may or may not correspond to yours. Hope you get lucky and come on a day when they come out. And dress for a cold wait.
With the mercury at a frigid 11 degrees Fahrenheit, I scraped the ice off the windshield of our Subaru this morning and drove to the Millstone River Impoundment in Princeton.
The adults are top and bottom, the immature in the middle.
To my delight, a few minutes after I stepped out of my car I spotted three bald eagles circling overhead. Two of them were mature and one was a juvenile, and they chased each other in the sky within easy view as I crossed the footbridge that spans what I believe was once a lock on the Delaware and Raritan Canal.
I was so surprised at the sight that I fumbled with my camera, eventually swinging it up to snap several shots as the birds headed off over Lake Carnegie.
The adults then settled on the opposite side of the lake, perched in a tree. What became of the juvenile, I don’t know. 🦅
With each passing year, it seems we’re getting less and less snow than we did previously. We got a surprising two inches of the white stuff overnight, and I gleefully headed out to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, anticipating some bird-in-snow shots.
While it seemed most of the birds decided to sleep in at the winter solstice, a few did pop out and give me an opportunity to capture them in pixels. The most cooperative bird was the cardinal topping this post. He perched high up in a tree at the edge of the woods, and he was obliging enough to face the sun, which had at last emerged from the clouds.
I like the shot up top because it clearly shows the snow behind the bird. Although the snow is not quite as prominent, I like this next shot — the last one I snapped this morning — even better because the bird is stretching forward. That makes the composition more dynamic than the top photo.
Mr. Cardinal leans forward. If you look closely, you can see around the bird a few dots of snow that the breeze stirred up.
After I’d walked more than a mile on the trails, I had encountered about a dozen dark-eyed juncos foraging on one of the trails and flitting among the trees. At that point, I was in the woods and the sun was not fully out. I’m grateful that by shooting in the c-RAW format, I was able to produce a decent image.
Dark-eyed junco snacking on a tree.
Once I brought my images up on screen at home, I got a bonus: a couple of frames of an American tree sparrow. Thinking it was another junco, I pointed my camera up toward the bird and snapped a couple of frames. Nothing against the juncos, but I was glad to add the tree sparrow to my e-Bird checklist. They aren’t as abundant as the juncos, and I love their rufous caps and bicolored bills.
American tree sparrow perched on a branch.
This afternoon, I headed down to Trenton marsh (Abbott Marshlands) for a short, windy walk. Spring Lake was heavy with gadwalls and ring-necked ducks. Two mute swans were also on the water, out of range for a decent photo.
It was great to see the swans. Until a few months ago, I could always count on seeing a pair of them on the lake or, more typically, on the nearby marsh. But they disappeared in either late spring or early summer.
I can’t tell, of course, whether these are the same birds. Whoever they are, I’m glad they’ve come calling. 🦅
One of our sons had a meeting in Prague, so my wife and I booked flights to join him afterward on our first trip to Europe as a couple. I knew the trip would mostly be about seeing the sights (and they were spectacular) so I didn’t bring my big Sigma zoom lens that I use for birding here at home.
I did pack my 75-300mm Canon zoom, figuring I’d get a couple of chances to use it in Prague and on a day trip we’d take to Dresden, Germany. As it turned out, I only got to use the Canon on our last day in Prague, when we walked across the famed Charles Bridge over the Vlatava River. About half the bridge is shown in the background of the photo topping this post.
A Eurasian jackdaw parks on a statue head.
Black-headed gulls swarmed the bridge and the areas surrounding it. The bridge, which dates to the 14th century, has 30 statues flanking it. Not surprisingly, the statues serve as landing spots for the birds.
We crossed the bridge in the hour before sunset under heavy cloud cover, so conditions were not ideal for photos. But I still got a few shots I’m comfortable sharing here.
One of the black-headed gulls at the edge of the Vltava.
The black-headed gulls and jackdaws were new entries on my life list. My wife pointed out a mute swan on the water. I’ve seen plenty of them in the U.S., but I was surprised to find out when I posted the swan on e-Bird that it counted as a lifer. That’s because mute swans aren’t native in the United States, same as the European starlings we see most days.
Other lifers spotted from or near the Charles Bridge were tufted ducks and Eurasian coots, which look remarkably like their American counterparts.
Tufted ducks. Note the tuft on the head of the bird at top center.
We spent most of our time in Old Town Prague, and other than pigeons, I saw only a few birds. No sparrows, but I did spot two Eurasian blackbirds in the trees as we walked through a small park on our way to Wenceslas Square.
Last Saturday, Dec. 7, we boarded a train for a two-hour trip to Dresden, Germany. The train followed the Elbe River most of the way, and we passed through some hills that had a smattering of snow on them. We spotted a few birds from the windows. I had a good look at a great cormorant spreading its wings at the river’s edge.
Dresden was humming because it was the day of the annual Stollenfest, when the bakers and pastry makers in town make a huge Christmas stollen and parade it through the streets. The tradition goes back a couple of centuries.
Here comes the stollen!
After we watched that delightful spectacle, we walked through a park along the Elbe. I heard a bird singing, whipped out my Merlin app and it lit up with a great tit. I spotted one in a tree, but with only my normal kit lens attached to my camera, I had no chance at a decent photo.
A couple of carrion crows strutted on the ground. They seemed slightly smaller than their American cousins but had the same swagger.
All told, I added nine birds to my life list, bringing the total to 229. Given that I spent barely the equivalent of two hours looking for birds, I think that’s a good haul.
I hope to return to the Czech Republic and to Germany some day and find more new birds in the Old World. Meantime, I’ve headed back out to my usual haunts, glad to be home and better for experiencing six days in Europe. 🦅
Like life, birds move pretty fast. But every so often they park in place, giving us photographers an opportunity to compose and take their portraits. I had two cracks at it today, this first day of December.
As I was making my way back to my car this morning at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, I spotted a blob in a tree at the AT&T historical exhibit. The blob was a bird, a hawk no doubt, but which variety?
As I got closer, it was plain to see from the patterned feathers on its chest that this was a red-shouldered hawk. It was calmly perched, swiveling its head every now and then. Two other photographers were parked nearby. I changed positions a few times, aiming to get a better angle clear of branches and with the bird lit up a bit more by what little sunlight was piercing the clouds.
One of my last shots produced the shot atop this post. It’s cropped from a wider image that shows the bird from the chest up. If birds had yearbook photos, this one might do well for the hawk.
Running an errand in the afternoon, I stopped by the Millstone River Impoundment in Princeton. By then, the sun was plentiful. I counted 30 double-crested cormorants floating in the water, the largest number I’ve ever seen at this spot.
Ring-billed gulls were swarming over the bridges that cross the water and a few were sitting on the sides of one of them. That’s where I found the gull immediately below.
Ring-billed gull in Princeton.
That bird and a couple of others perched nearby flew off once I started walking forward, and I soon spotted a great blue heron just off the bridge. I’m fairly certain it is the same blue heron I’ve seen in that area virtually time I’ve visited. The heron paid me no heed, and I got several nice shots. I chose the one below. With that fabulous chest plumage and the bird’s intent stare down the long beak, I didn’t want to crop any closer.
Great blue heron, who I’ve decided to call Clyde, after former NBA star Clyde “The Glide” Drexler.
I have no clue whether this heron is male or female, but I’m guessing it’s a male. I thank him and the other birds I saw today for posing in my plein air studio. 🦅
The grasslands in the fields at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm are prime habitat for Savannah sparrows, and I never tire of taking photos of them. This morning, I found the one topping this post in a tree at the history exhibit for the AT&T radio telephone years that spanned much of the 20th century.
A few days ago, I got what I consider one of my best shots of the species. The light was golden that morning, bringing out the yellow marking just above the bird’s eye. The sunlight warmed the grasses around the bird, too. I thought a vertical crop most effectively displayed it.
Savannah sparrow in the tall grass.
I’ve always figured that Savannah sparrows were named for the savannah-like grasslands that they frequent. I typically have kept the “s” in savannah lower case in most of my posts. But there are some cases in which I capitalized that “s,” and not just when beginning a sentence with the word.
This evening, I looked it up. The “s” should be capitalized, because the bird is named for Savannah, Georgia, where it was cataloged years ago. So to those Savannahs to which I referred in the lower case, I apologize.
I saw another Savannah late this afternoon when I went back to the Pole Farm in hopes of spotting a short-eared owl shortly after sunset. I didn’t bother taking my camera, because, owl or no owl, the light would be poor.
To my surprise, a Savannah sparrow flew in front of me shortly after I arrived and briefly foraged on the ground, not far from where I’d photographed the Savannah earlier in the day. I suggested to the little guy or gal to settle down for the night.
Northern harriers (I counted five) were doing their sunset flights for their final mouse morsels of the day. Two other birders with big camera lenses came down the central path about 15 minutes after sunset. A few minutes later, one of them cried out — a short-eared owl was flying not far from us.
The owl disappeared, then a few minutes later turned up across the field, jousting briefly with another shortie. It was a thrill to see them, our first of the season. We watched them intermittently for a few minutes as we made our way to the parking lot.
The owls are relatively rare and dramatic. I revel equally in the sight of the Savannah sparrow — a capital bird, one might say. 🦅
It always seems I’m short on seeing water birds, so this morning I headed to John A. Roebling Park, commonly referred to as Trenton marsh.
The marsh had plenty of activity when I arrived about 7:45 a.m. Canada geese and mallards were plying the water — no surprise — and adjoining Spring Lake was suddenly clear of its summer vegetation. Ring-necked ducks were out there, out of range from my camera, so I concentrated on the marsh.
The Northern pintail I saw take off was a harbinger of more seasonal visitors to come. The main trail has a few cutout paths that bring you to the edge of the marsh, and I quickly spotted a few Northern shovelers, including the one atop this post floating past two mallards. With their oversized bills, shovelers make me think evolution has a sense of humor.
Northern pintails float along the marsh.
More pintails appeared as I walked toward the footbridge to take me to onto the island and the back part of the marsh, White-throated sparrows were around me in abundance, and my best photo of the day was of one of them. (You’ll see that one in a later post.)
Mr. Hooded Merganser heads away.
As I reached the back marsh, I was hoping to catch a few teals. That wasn’t to be, but I got another treat instead: four hooded mergansers that skedaddled a hot moment after I started shooting. I got one sharp image of one of the males and a couple of fuzzy shots of females.
I don’t often anthropromorphize birds, but the males remind me of bespoke Pierce Brosnan and the females of the wild-haired Phyllis Diller. In a good way, of course. 🦅
My birding buddy Jim and I have walked the trails of the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm many times, but today was the first time we pulled into the parking lot almost simultaneously. Within a few minutes, a rare treat was in store.
We and other regular Pole farmers have been grousing of late about the relative scarcity of birds, but a few sparrows and juncos appeared as we left the parking lot. It was a good omen. We walked a short way up the paved trail when I looked ahead and spotted a red-tailed hawk perched on a sign post.
Jim and I each took a few shots from a distance, crept up a bit and then wondered: will the bird let us pass? As we walked along, the bird seemed unfazed, looking out into the fields and occasionally back toward the two non-avian creatures approaching.
The hawk was so close, it almost felt as if it were a portrait studio setting. Mr. Red-tailed never did turn directly at me when I was at my closest point to shoot.
Jim and I stayed on the grass just off the path, and at the closest point we were no more than 12 feet from the bird. It remained on that perch, even as a walker a few minutes behind us stopped to pull out a cell phone and take a photo.
As we headed up the center dirt trail, song and savannah sparrows flitted about. Jim said American tree sparrows were back, and seemingly on cue one appeared.
Two of the purple finches. I focused on the one on the left.
As we entered the woods and turned toward the old AT&T Building One oval, we spotted some birds in trees to our right. I immediately picked out a purple finch, which I could see clearly through my binoculars. Jim pointed out several more, and the little flock soon flew off.
Jim and I milled about for a while, then headed back down toward the parking lot. I found an accommodating savannah sparrow that paused briefly in the grasses for me to take a nice close-up.
Jim hung out a little longer, and I headed off to finish a report of 19 species in an hour and a quarter. The sunlight was gorgeous today, and my photos were the better for it. 🦅
The savannah sparrow, my best (or at least my favorite) shot of the day.
Owls have long fascinated humans, as attested by the ancient Greeks, who linked the birds to the goddess of wisdom, Athena. For those of us living in the modern world, owls remain a symbol of wisdom themselves.
I’ve had few opportunities to gaze into their soulful eyes, and I recently got the opportunity to see a long-eared owl. I won’t specify where or when, following the conventions of e-Bird, which considers the species sensitive and wants to protect the birds from intrusive observation.
A year ago, long-eared owls showed up at a local park, and one day I got the slimmest peek at a portion of the head and torso of one of them nestled in a cedar tree. It was a sighting but from afar through binoculars.
On a recent morning, a encountered a small group of birders loitering near a stand of cedars, and I immediately guessed they were near an owl, as word-of-mouth reports had been circulating.
A birder I’ve seen in passing a few times gestured up into the trees, and I looked for the owl but couldn’t spot it.
With a tug on my camera strap, the other birder whispered for me to crouch and look up. There was the owl, its long ears poking up, sitting about 25 feet high on a branch. Smaller branches defied me, and getting a clear shot with my camera was difficult. But no question, I was getting a true view of a LEO.
I texted my birder friend Laura, and we made plans to visit again the next day. Her husband and their dog came along, and we headed to the site where the owl had been the day before. There it was, in roughly the same spot, slightly more visible this time.
A group of birders and photographers was on scene. One of the shooters was using flash to take photos, and I didn’t have the nerve to scold him for it. Our mere presence stressed the owl, and a flash of light every now and then was obnoxious.
The long-eared owl, partially obscured by a branch, stares toward me.
Laura kept her dog at a distance, and we stayed only briefly to observe the owl. I managed to get a few fair shots through the branches, and I’m pleased that I was able to do so.
I hope the other birders had the good sense to wrap up their viewing quickly and leave the owl in peace. That’s the wise way to go. 🦉
The Jersey Birder 