The Jersey Birder

A hint of fall at the Pole Farm

We’re still a few weeks away from the autumnal equinox, but Mother Nature is dropping a few hints that Fall is coming. The annual fall migration of birds is underway, and I’ve yet to see any southbound warblers in my treks at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

Eastern kingbird in tree, with one wing partially extended. — Eastern kingbird. Is that a wave of “hello?” Or maybe it’s “goodbye.”

But this morning, an obliging Northern cardinal perched on a tree, and behind him I could see a patch of foliage turning from green to red and gold. The bird set himself amid some small branches, and I had to shift my position a couple of times to put my focus point on him. He spent most of the time turning his back on me, but he turned to his side a couple of times to afford me one clear shot, which tops this post.

Cardinals are with us year-round, fortunately, but soon I’ll be saying goodbye to some of the itinerants who spend only the middle months of the year with us. I spotted a pair of Eastern kingbirds yesterday, and I saw one again this morning perched high up in a tree.

The number of field sparrows and common yellowthroats, both species whose songs delight my summer mornings, are getting scarce. I’ll be sad to see them go, but not too sad. I know they’ll be back next spring. In the meantime, the Northern harriers should be back soon. 🦅

Female common yellowthroat perched on a branch, with its beak open in what almost appears a smile. — Common yellowthroat on Aug. 26.

Summer doldrums for birding? Nah!

For the past week, I’ve endured a stretch of work and weather that has not been conducive to birding. The last couple of days have drenched the area with rain, some of which can be attributed to the remnants of Hurricane Debby. My binoculars and cameras have been parked indoors, and I’m itching to take them out again when the sun comes up tomorrow.

I did manage to get out to the Pole Farm on Tuesday morning, and I was pleased to get the shot topping this post of a song sparrow. At least I’m reasonably certain it’s a song sparrow, as I saw it in profile and could not clearly identify the trademark dark spot on its breast. I like the shot because the bird shows up clearly on the reddish branches against a lush green background. The photo looks good on the desktop screen of my laptop and on the big monitor I have on my desk at work.

The Pole Farm fields have been fertle for the Eastern cottontails this year, and I got an unusual look at one Tuesday along the Lawrence-Hopewell trail. I always thought the cotton tails were attached directly to the hindquarters, but this rabbit had unfurled its tail. I’ve taken many trips around the sun, and I’d never seen anything like that before.

Rabbit with tail extended. — Funny bunny: check out the tail, with the cotton part smushed against the pavement.

My turn as a birding guide

My office hosted a conference for colleagues from similar offices at other universities this week. As part of the festivities, I offered to lead a birding walk at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

Tuesday dawned partly sunny and partly muggy, but conditions were good for the walk. As for the birds, this was one of those days when they were elusive.

In our leisurely hour-long stroll, we only identified nine species, an unusually low total, even for the middle of summer. Although there was a typical chorus of field sparrows, stunningly, we heard just one common yellowthroat. Normally in similar circumstances, I’d record 10 or 12.

We did get one unusual sighting, a common raven that squawked as it flew overhead. That’s only the third time I can recall spotting a raven at Mercer Meadows, the second on the Pole Farm side of the park.

I only had occasion to raise my camera a couple of times. A willow flycatcher came into view as we were heading back down the trail, and a gray catbird poked out of a tree. The catbird shots weren’t worth saving, although I had two fair frames of the flycatcher.

Two of my colleagues on the walk work at Cornell University, and we spoke glowingly about the Cornell-developed Merlin app. We demonstrated it on site.

Willow flycatcher perched in bare tree branches. — Willow flycatcher

The walk was the first time I led a group outing, and it was a pleasure to show off the Pole Farm. Even though we saw unusually few birds, I was happy to share my love of birding.

I didn’t probe deeply, but those who joined me were more “birding curious” than active birders. Several talked about birds spotted in their yards at home. I’m betting many of these new friends will be paying more attention to their avian visitors when they get home.

Demon grackles swarm my feeders

Common grackles are the motorcycle gangs of the bird world. They swoop into our yard, attacking the suet feeder and often by sunset gobbling up the two cakes I had put in fresh after sunrise.

It’s not unusual to see scores of them at home — a group strutting around the grass while others squabble over the suet and others pounce on the tub feeder perch. European starlings and red-winged blackbirds will sometimes arrive with the grackles. It’s never clear which species spotted the food to be had in my little half-acre, but word spreads quickly.

While females and juvenile male grackles are a drab brown, mature males have a stark beauty, best revealed when sunshine brings out the shimmering iridescence of their heads.

Above, two grackles grapple at my suet feeder. Below, a grackle shows off his colors at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

A common grackle perched in a tree and lit by the sun.

Fortune finds me a feather

One year ago, I aborted a visit to the Reed Bryan Farm side of Mercer Meadows because I wasn’t feeling right. My balance was off. Later that day I fell at home and had difficulty walking after that. I ended up hospitalized for a bit, missed two and a half months of work and spent a couple of months walking with a cane.

I’m fully recovered, thank goodness. To celebrate one year of passage*, I headed out to Reed Bryan Farm this morning, hoping the birding gods might grant me a special gift — a lifer, maybe, or a great photo opportunity.

A female Northern flicker. Did she give me a special gift? I’d like to think so.

I found a typical assortment of birds, not counting three purple martins clustered in the same tree where I had spotted their kind once before, the only time I’ve seen them at either Reed Bryan or the neighboring Pole Farm. Photo opportunities were less than average, although I had caught a Northern flicker high up in a bare tree and hoped that might turn out alright.

As I looped back toward the parking lot, ahead of me on the trail I spotted a yellow and black feather, clearly something shed by a Northern flicker. I’m not one for omens or superstitions, but on this day, I figured I should treat the feather as that gift I was hoping for. I stopped for a selfie photo, and as I resumed walking I decided the feather was a prompt to realize that I truly was given a gift, the gift of good health.

When I got home and checked my photos, I could see that the flicker I had encountered was a female, with her yellow shafts clearly visible. I have no proof, of course, but I’d like to think she left that feather for me to find.

*I’ve since figured out that I was a day early for the anniversary of that aborted visit, which was Monday, July 17, 2023. Leap Year threw me. Regardless, it’s a special day for me as I conclude the year that has passed.

The Pole Farm kestrels have fledged

The American kestrels that hatched in the maintenance barn at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm a few weeks ago fledged last week while I was away in Texas. Today, I was delighted to get a good look at some of them.

I had completed my walk and was pulling out of the parking lot when I spotted three of the young birds perched on a wire stretching to the barn from the street. I stopped, popped out of the car and took several shots.

A kestrel, back to the camera, looks to its left. — One of the kestrels scanning the land.

The best of the lot, of one of the birds flying down from the wire, tops this post.

While I was shooting, two more kestrels flew by from behind the barn, and I”m reasonably certain they were one of the fledglings and the mother, who’s been regulary stationed at one of the roof peaks most days.

Kestrels are in decline, although not listed as threatened or endangered. I’m rooting for the Pole Farm newcomers to help turn things around for the species.

Two kestrels perched side by side. — Two of the kestrels perch.

A little pre-hurricane birding in Texas

I’m visiting my daughter and her family in College Station, Texas, where we’re curious to know how much rain will dump on us Monday as Hurricane Beryl barrels its way into the Lone Star State.

I’ve been able to get out birding twice since my wife and I flew in Tuesday afternoon. With the temperature in the mid-90s, on Wednesday I went to two city parks, where I didn’t see many birds but logged a couple of surprises and a disappointment or two.

The first stop was Lemontree Park, where I saw a raptor circling overhead that turned out to be a Mississippi kite. Otherwise, not much was happening beyond a couple of cardinals and a Carolina wren.

Finishing off my water bottle, I drove over to Gabbard Park, where I’d visited on a previous trip and had good luck. It returned. A white-winged dove was calling as I got out of the car, and across the pond in the center of park I spotted a heron of some sort. It flew off before I could get close enough for a decent photo. A green heron soon appeared, and I made my way around the pond and shot a couple of frames of what I thought was a great blue heron, although it was a tad on the small side. It turned out to be a yellow-crowned night heron (in top photo), one of three I’d find in close proximity along the water’s edge.

This morning, Sunday, I headed to Lick Creek Park, a hotspot that I’d visited before. I was hoping I might luck out and find a scissor-tailed flycatcher or a painted bunting, but it was not to be. The Merlin app lit up with “painted bunting” three or four times, but if the song capture was real, I saw no sign of the bird and could not distinguish it by ear.

On my one-mile roundtrip stroll, I heard several bird but saw only one, something dark that flew into a tree to leave me wondering what it was.

The storm is expected to hit College Station overnight, and the forecasts say we’re in for a full day of rain. I don’t plan to get any birding in tomorrow and I do wish that everyone in Beryl’s path stays safe.

Birds bathing in high heat and humidity

The day dawned hot, muggy and foggy. After a strong overnight thunderstorm, the windows in our house were so steamed up that I could not see the closest feeder that’s barely 10 feet away outside. As the sun started to burn through the haze, I drove to Veteran’s Park in Hamilton, in hopes of finding a few birds that I hadn’t seen this June.

The park usually has some sea gulls flying around, but not today, and my June count thus has none of them. The first birds I saw were a pair of great blue herons slinking along the shore of the lake that covers a good stretch of the park. I pulled up my camera but couldn’t see anything but gray through the lens, which I assumed had fogged.

It turned out, what was fogged was my brain.

I used my T-shirt to wipe the viewfinder glass clean, then pointed my camera. The red focus point came on but the camera wouldn’t fire, despite repeated attempts. I used my shirt to wipe the lens, which, oddly, didn’t look fogged, and the shutter still wouldn’t click.

At that point, I decided to keep walking, hoping that the camera — which had been in my air-conditioned car on the 20-minute drive to the park — would clear up after adjusting to the changed environment. No dice.

Only after I got home did I discover that a switch on the lens had somehow tripped over to a setting that limits the focusing distance to 10 meters. Once again, operator error was the cause of the malfunction, and I scolded myself for not checking my settings when I started the day.

The switch reset to infinity, I ventured out to the Pole Farm this afternoon, and the camera worked fine. The temperature and the humidity were both in the high 80s, and the birds surely were as hot and sticky as I was. On the way out the trail, I spotted the catbird depicted above having a good splash in a big puddle. As I headed back to my car, more birds — a female cardinal, a song sparrow and another catbird — were taking a dunk in the puddle.

I wish I could have joined them.

Time for me to fledge: The Pole Farm kestrels

We regular birders at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm have been delighting in our daily observations of the pair of American kestrels who have nested in the the barn beside the main parking lot at Cold Soil and Keefe roads.

Virtually every morning for the past several weeks, we’ve seen at least one and sometimes two kestrels zipping in and out of the barn and perching on nearby trees. We were reasonably certain that babies had hatched inside.

Now we have proof, and it seems likely that however many nestlings are inside, they will soon fledge.

This morning, one of the little ones was perched in the hole while its parents periodically went in and out to fetch food.

I’ll be smarter on my next visit and switch to a faster shutter speed to catch the action. The photo at top shows one of the parents flying off while the little one stays inside.

These next several days should be even more exciting.

Kestrel arriving at nest hole on side of red barn. — Momma kestrel arrives.

Young kestrel looking out of nest hole. — Momma kestrel arrives.

Blue grosbeaks and brown thrashers rule the day

We’re in a hot spell in much of the Eastern half of the country, with temperatures pushing into the high 90s here in central New Jersey. As a result, more birders than usual were out at the Pole Farm in the 7 o’clock hour this morning to beat the heat, as the temperature was only in the 70s.

A male blue grosbeak perched on a green stalk in a field of green plants. — A male blue grosbeak perches on a plant.

We were treated to some nifty aerial maneuvers by three blue grosbeaks swooping about one of the main fields just beyond the rest rooms and the picnic tables’ shelter by the AT&T historical exhibit. As I walked up from the parking lot I spotted three birders with their lenses pointing out into the field, and every minute or so a pair of the grosbeaks flew up, darted at one another and came down for landings within reach of our long lenses.

At one point, one of the males and one of the females were aligned for a photo, but they were a bit too far for me to get a crisp shot. Instead, I’ve posted the best of the lot of the males.

Another highlight was seeing the brown thrashers that have taken up residence in a clump of trees just up from the Cold Soil Road parking lot. My best shot of the day tops this post. If you look closesly, you can see that the thrasher has crushed an insect in its beak.

A couple of us staked out some berry bushes, hoping to frame a nice shot of the thrasher amid the berries. The bird was teasingly close to the berries but flew off before I got the shot I was hoping for.

Finally, as we were heading back to our cars, we looked up and spotted a trio of birds atop one of the big trees. An American kestrel was on one branch and a red-winged blackbird flew in a branch or two away. Farther to the right was a brown thrasher. The photo below, though not great, will give you an idea of the scene. It illustrates the wonder of the Pole Farm, with such a variety of birds in close proximity.

While the birds stayed in place for a minute or two, eventually the blackbird rose up and dived at the kestrel. A short chase ensued as the kestrel headed toward her nest in the maintenance barn by the parking lot.

I hope the kestrels and all the birds are finding their own ways to beat the heat, not to mention us birders!