New neighbors: the bluebirds out back

One male Eastern bluebird stopped by one of our backyard bird boxes on Wednesday, taking a look inside the entry hole that gnawing squirrels enlarged over the past couple of years.

On Thursday evening, I spotted a male perched on the chain to our hammock near the bird house. Then — mirabile dictu — a female appeared, perching atop the shepherd’s hook that holds two of our feeders. Could the pair be setting up housekeeping in our yard?

I wondered.

Bluebird on the grass, with twigs in its beak.
Gathering nest material.

This morning, there was no doubt: Mr. and Mrs. were zipping in and out of the house, taking turns bringing twigs into the house, which is nailed to the trunk of our larch tree. The larch should bring the bluebirds shade much of the day.

I’m thrilled to see bluebirds nesting in our yard, something I never dreamed would happen, especially for them to take up residence in the big-opening bird house.

A nice man who did some drainage piping for our house made the bird house out of a cherry tree that was on our lot but had to be cut down for fear it would topple onto our neighbors’ home.

An Eastern bluebird peeks out of the entry hole of a carved wooden bird house that has to eyes to make its front look like a human face.
I see you, my landlord!

That large opening makes me worry a bit, because it’s big enough for predators to get inside. Squirrels have playfully crawled in and out of the opening for the last couple of years. I wish the new couple well and will keep tabs on them in the days — and I hope — months ahead.

***

Another recent delight was to find this site featured among the “90 Best Bird Blogs to Follow” on Feedspot.com. Considering that Audubon is ranked Number One and Jersey Birder is No. 73, I am highly complimented and grateful for the honor.

Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you subscribe to blogs, news sites, and any website you want to keep up with.

Take a look at that list — it’s full of great blogs, a few of which I was aware and many others I’ve begun to explore. Also check out Feedspot in general for ways to help promote your work.

A big “thank you” to the Feedspot team. 🦅

Retirement means more time for birding!

My retirement from Princeton University took effect Wednesday, and I took first opportunity to head to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. The morning was sunny and warm, and I knew those conditions would not last as a heat dome was starting to form over New Jersey and much of the Eastern United States.

Baltimore oriole up high.

As the headline notes, retirement will offer me more time for birding. One of my first objectives is to try to file e-Bird reports from the eight New Jersey counties that I have yet to visit.

On Wednesday, I logged 30 species and managed photos of several of them. A Baltimore oriole was sitting up nicely on a bare treetop branch, and I managed to capture a few clear images of him.

In recent weeks, I’ve heard Eastern meadowlarks only a few times. One flew overhead as I walked up the central path and I soon spotted one in the middle of the field to my right. As I pressed the camera shutter, I wasn’t sure if I was getting a sharp shot as the bird was surrounded by vegetation. I was happy with what I got for the circumstances.

An Eastern meadowlark looks back as it perches on a small branch in front of other branches with many green leaves.
Eastern meadowlark.

I logged 23 common yellowthroats on my three-mile circuit, and I was only able to catch one of them with my camera. But I’m happy with that.

A male common yellowthroat leans forward slightly while perched on a horizontal green tree branch with green leaves behind him.
Male common yellowthroat.

I look forward to observing and photographing many more birds in the months ahead and sharing my adventures with my readers. An Eastern bluebird made a rare appearance in our yard today, and I take that as a good omen! 🦅

Birds make me smile; do they smile back?

Birds make me happy, and many of them make me smile. Northern cardinals and indigo buntings always lift my spirits, for example, as their thrilling colors brighten my world.

Other birds instantly bring a smile to my face, whether it’s the chickadee calling “dee-dee-dee” near one of our feeders or the goofy brown thrasher mumbo-jumboing from a treetop.

As I walked the Pole Farm trails Monday, I spotted a common yellowthroat tucked in the shadows of a tree. That little yellow-and-black bandit instantly brought a smile to my face.

Another smile inducer is the willow flycatcher. Several of them entertain us this time of year at the Mercer meadows. On my Monday outing, I saw only one, which was sitting on a branch about 20 yards away.

For some reason, I had trouble focusing on him (her?) but eventually locked in. The little rascal was alternating silence and song, and I was pleased to get a few sharp shots with its beak open.

Willow flycatcher belting out its song.

Looking at these images, I can’t help but smile. It almost seems as if the bird is smiling, too. It’s presumptuous to anthropomorphise animals, but who among us humans can resist doing so? To my eyes, this bird looks happy, and that makes me happy. 🦅

Least bitterns cause a stir at Rosedale Park in Pennington

Every once in a while, Mercer County hosts a celebrity bird or two. This week, the least bitterns that have shown up at Rosedale Park in Pennington are doing their star turn, luring birders in bunches.

When birding buddy Jim and I showed up this morning, we spotted a group of birders with long camera lenses and spotting scopes at a corner of the lake in the center of the park. No doubt about it, they were on the hunt for the least bitterns, small members of the heron family.

The gaggle of birders searching for the least bittern calling from somewhere along the lake.

Jim and I joined the gang and soon heard the poo-poo-poo call of a bittern that someone eventually spotted, a white dot in the tall vegetation across the lake. The views through our binoculars and viewfinders were sufficient to make the ID but not to guarantee a fair shot.

Jim and I walked down the edge of the lake, past the fishing platform, then veered uphill onto the gravel path that bikers, joggers and strollers use to transit the park. We heard another bittern calling from across the water but couldn’t spot it.

We headed back to the water’s edge and soon heard another bittern calling, seemingly only a few feet away from inside tall grasses. I momentarily spotted the bittern as it crossed a small opening in the vegetation. A minute or two later, Jim watched it fly to the other side of the boat launch and land in the shoreline grasses.

We caught a few glimpses of the mostly obscured bird, then decided to try our luck back up the slope. Eventually, we spotted the bird again. We were able to take photos, but the bird was still partially obscured.

We backed up on the trail and finally found a clear view. The bird was cooperative, staying perched for what probably was 10 minutes before a group of agitated red-winged blackbirds moved in and chased Mr. Bittern away.

Standing tall, the male least bittern gave us lots of time to take its portrait.

Jim had pointed out the first least bittern I’d ever seen at Abbott Marshlands in Trenton four years ago, but the bird was across the marsh and I don’t recall even trying to get a photo of it.

On seeing repeated e-Bird reports of bittern sightings, I went to Rosedale Park on Friday morning and saw two of them fly across the lake. But I was skunked on photos.

I was extra pleased today to be able to capture clear shots of one of these rare visitors. I hope they stick around so other birders get a chance to see them. 🦅

Has the summer slowdown begun at the Pole Farm?

Spring migration is over, and most birds have settled into where they’ll spend the summer. I crossed paths with a birding friend yesterday, and we both noted that opportunities to see and photograph birds at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm seem as if they are starting to slow.

On Wednesday, for example, I shot photos just once, getting a few frames of two field sparrows flitting just off one of the trails. Today presented better opportunities, starting with an orchard oriole that was calling from the greenery just off the Cold Soil Road parking lot.

I fumbled to get my camera out of the car and to zoom in on the bird before it flew off. I figured I’d be lucky to get one good shot. but the camera gods were kind.

The photo of the orchard oriole topping this post looks great as the desktop image on my big OLED monitor on my desk at home. You probably can’t see them if you’re viewing this post on a cell phone or other small screen, but there are small, colorful flowers to the left of the bird and farther to the right of him. Below is a different frame, cropped more closely that shows the bird off well.

A male orchard oriiole -- with black head, deep orange breast and black wings -- opens its beak while perched in green-leafed plants. The upper beak is black and the lower beak mostly silver.
Orchard oriole calling from the grasses.

As I walked up the trail and entered the main meadows, well off to my left I spotted an Eastern kingbird. That excited me, as I’d seen only one previously this year, in approximately the same spot. This time I was able to shoot several frames. I was happy to get a couple of strong shots.

An Eastern kingbird clings to a slender gray tree branch. The bird has a white neck and breast but is otherwise black, save for the white tips on its tail feathers.
The kingbird, with its tell-tale white-tipped tail in view.

Those shots were all taken within the first quarter mile of a three-mile walk. I took only a few more photos. Once I passed the AT&T Building One oval and headed up the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail, I decided to see where the pavement would take me.

Although I’ve bicycled that portion of the LHT many times, I had not walked it with my camera beyond 100 yards or so. The path took me to Blackwell Road across from the Hunt House, and I walked up Blackwell to return to the Pole Farm paths and back to my car. I was not moved to shoot any photos in the last two miles of my walk, underscoring the point that photo opportunities are diminished as summer unfolds. 🦅

A five-lifer day down the Jersey shore

With the Atlantic City skyline in the distance, my friend Jim and I explored the Great Bay Boulevard Wildlife Management Area at Tuckerton today. I added five species to my life list. Even better, I got photos of each.

Saltmarsh sparrow

I’m topping this post with a photo of one of those, a saltmarsh sparrow. We heard these coastal birds at our first stop along the road that cuts into the flat expanses of land and estuary on a peninsula jutting out of the New Jersey coast.

The saltmarsh sparrow looks like a darker version of the Savannah sparrow, with a more vivid yellow streak on its head.

We heard them before we saw them. Ahead of that, we saw several seaside sparrows, another of the day’s lifers for me.

The seaside sparrow is a drab, dark brown-gray. It, too, has some yellow on its head, but a much shorter run of it than the saltmarsh sparrow.

A seaside sparrow perches in tall grasses.
Seaside sparrow perched in the grasses.

As we drove along the road and pulled over at several points, we spotted greater black-backed gulls, laughing gulls, red-winged blackbirds, great and snowy egrets, and a couple of Forster’s terns. Add to that several willets (lifer No. 3 on the day) that were much easier to spot than the small sparrows.

A willet, with wings spread, lets out a cry as it lands on a wooden post or tree snag in the grassy expanse
A willet lands on a post sticking up in the grasses.

We traveled over several bridges, including a couple of narrow, wood-planked spans where we had to slalom our way through several people fishing off the side rails.

Eventually, we reached the end of the road, where another wooden bridge leads to a Rutgers University research station. We were able to walk up the bridge a hundred yards or so until a locked security fence blocked the way.

Looking off one side of the bridge, we scanned the land dotted with small pools of water. We were hoping to spot a clapper rail, as we’d heard a few of them on prior stops.

We got lucky. Jim spotted one (lifer No. 4) walking through the grasses. It may have sensed our presence, as it scurried along at one point before slowing and going to ground in some grasses along the road.

A clapper rail, a drab gray and brown bird with a long dark orange bill, walks through grasses.
The clapper rail, before it bolted for cover.

On our way to and from the end of the road, we spotted black- and yellow-crowned night herons. At our next-to-last stop on the way back, we got photos of both, and my car was invaded by greenhead horse flies. Those nasty critters had been kept at bay by the breezes for the first two hours of our visit, but as the temperature warmed they came out in force. Fortunately, neither Jim nor I was bitten by one of them, although I had to shoe them out of the car a few times and even still had three of them hitching a ride until I got home.

Headshot of immature yellow-crowned night heron, with a black beak and an eye with a black center and an orange ring around it.
Close-up shot of young yellow-crowned night heron.

Lifer No. 5 was still to come. As we headed back toward civilization, Jim spotted a glossy ibis foraging in the grasses to our left. We got out of the car and did our best to get the ibis (an increasing presence in New Jersey in these warming years) on camera.

A glossy ibis prowls in a path through grasses. The bird has a downward curving black beak, a brown head and neck and a brown body.
My first, and so far only, glossy ibis. I’ve seen white ones in Florida.

The five lifers took my life list up to 252, and my state total for the year is up to 156. I’m aiming to beat my previous best, 175 in 2022. Wish me luck! 🦅

Ovenbirds: loud and lovely warblers

The loud, insistent call of the ovenbird is a daily experience in the woods at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, but it’s rare that I get to see one. Today, I spotted two.

I took an unusual route. I headed up the central trail from the Cold Soil Road parking lot, turned right to the AT&T Building One oval and turned left onto the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail. But instead of keeping straight, I turned off the pavement near a sign marking a watershed divide and onto a rutted and grassy trail that crosses the woods .

I never seem to spot much on that trail and while crossing it this morning I saw only a catbird fly across my path. When the trail ended, I turned left onto one of the main trails that would eventually get me back to my car.

A few moments later, two birds flew into branches to my left, only about two or three feet off the ground. The birds were in heavy shadow, and I had trouble focusing. One of the birds flew off and the other moved back onto another branch.

I took a few shots before it, too, took off. I checked the images in my viewfinder, and only two were likely to confirm an ID. I was thinking I’d captured an ovenbird from what appeared to be an eye ring, but I wouldn’t rule out a wood thrush or another type of thrush until I would get the images up on screen.

The one sharp photo I got (and it tops this post) made clear that I’d found an ovenbird. Eureka! As with the wood thrush I found in the open earlier this month, I was thrilled to get on camera a bird I often hear but only occasionally see.

As I walked on, I got to play peek-a-boo with a young white-tailed deer. 🦅

A young deer peeks around the trunk of a tree, with green leaves in front of its face.
Deer looking my way while munching on leaves.

We found bobolinks aplenty, with a grasshopper sparrow bonus

My buddy Jim and I drove back to the Lazy Brook Greenway on Saturday in search of bobolinks. which love the tall grasses in the greenway’s open fields. It wasn’t nearly as windy as on our previous visit, and we figured we’d have better chances to photograph the bobolinks.

We started shooting within a few minutes of stepping out of the car. On the visit last month, we saw plenty of male bobolinks, and I can’t recall if we saw any females. This visit was different, as we saw plenty of black, yellow and white males and their lovely tan and yellow female counterparts.

A tan and light yellow feamle bobolink perhes on a grayish wood fece with green grass in the background and a couple of flying insects to the left of her.
A female bobolink perches on a fence, with a couple of flying insects visible at left.

As great as the bobolinks were — and I logged 30 of them, likely an undercount — I was perhaps even more pleased to get shots of a grasshopper sparrow.

Grasshopper sparrow perched in the grasses.
Grasshopper sparrow at Lazy Brook Greenway.

Those birds are in short supply in New Jersey, and we saw a couple of them at Lazy Brook. Before arriving there, we stopped at the Cider Mill Grassland Preserve in Flemington. We spotted a grasshopper sparrow singing from a wire, and I’ve chosen one of my shots of it to top this post. The bird set off to the right with the bright blue sky behind it gives a realistic sense of how it looked in the field.

Here are a couple more bobolink shots for fans of those great birds. 🦅

Male bobolink perched atop a fence slat.
Male bobolink on the fence.
Male bobolink, wings outstretched, lands on a stalk of grass.
Male bobolink landing on a stalk of grass.

Capturing a wood thrush in two media

The mellifluent songs of wood thrushes fill the woods where I walk at the Mercer Meadows this time of the year, but it’s a rare day when I am able to spot one.

My luck changed Sunday morning. I began my walk from the parking lot at the Reed-Bryan Farm side of the park and eventually found myself on the trail that cuts through the woods connecting the Reed-Bryan side to the Pole Farm side.

Wood thrushes were singing with seemingly every step I took. Five minutes or so down the trail, I turned to my right and I saw a wood thrush singing from a tree branch roughly 30 feet away.

Wood thrush on a tree branch, singing with its beak open.
The wood thrush, in full voice.

Not believing my good fortune, I started snapping away with my camera. The bird was facing to my left at first, then reversed direction. I was able to get several shots each way.

I had been holding my iPhone with the Merlin app recording when I spotted the thrush. I was so absorbed in training my camera on the bird that I forgot I was holding the phone. Eventually, I had the good sense to hit “save” on the app, and I’ve embedded the file below. You can hear my shutter clicking and a bit of my breathing.

I can’t recall shooting and recording simultaneously before, so consider this a rare opportunity to hear the bird singing while it’s being photographed. One of these days I should try shooting video! 🦅

Another trip to the pines: warblers, lizards and a snake

Hoping to spot a summer tanager, my pal Jim and I drove south into the Pine Barrens this morning to the Michael Huber Prairie Warbler Preserve. The tanager would have been a lifer for me, and Jim figured our odds of spotting one were good because he’s seen them there for a few years running.

We didn’t spot one, but that disappointment faded fast. At our first stop, we saw a red-headed woodpecker and heard at least one and probably a couple more calling from the pines.

A red-headed woodpecker perches at the top of a bare, dead tree.
Red-headed woodpecker atop a dead tree.

Ovenbirds were calling repeatedly, and we heard many prairie warblers, as was to be expected at a prairie warbler preserve.

I heard from another birding friend yesterday that prothonotary warblers nesting in a wooden post were feeding their young. He had video to prove it. When we got to the bridge with the post, we discovered that the nesting cavity was empty. Did the young ones fledge? Did a predator get them? We’ll never know. Jim did spot a prothonotary nearby, and I caught a fleeting glimpse.

We turned out attention to the hooded warblers singing in the woods. I got a few dark shots not worth sharing, but I did manage a nice shot of an Acadian flycatcher. Although I’d heard them, this was the first one I got to see.

An Acadian flycatcher sits on a tree branch. The bird has a yellow-tinted white breast with an olive green back and head. The bird has two white wing bars.
The Acadian flycatcher. Handsome one, no?

Our time near the bridge was prelude to even better sightings.

As we started back down the trail toward our car, we were surprised by a blue-winged warbler flitting about bushes a few feet in front of us. It turned out there were two blue-wings, presumably male and female. They chased each other through the bushes and trees.

All of a sudden, a prothonotary warbler appeared in those same bushes. I squeezed off four shots that were too fuzzy to share. But my luck changed as a black-and-white warbler flew into one of the big pines, about halfway up. I was able to get several nice shots.

Black-and-white warbler on a pine tree branch, with pine needles to the left. The bird has, as its name notes, a black and white body. The belly is white, and the wings and head are black with white spots and stripes.
The black-and-white warbler on a pine branch.

A short while later, what we assumed was another prothonotary warbler appeared, popping between a couple of pine trees nearby. Only when I got home and uploaded a couple of photos to e-Bird did I learn that it was one of the blue-winged warblers. The defining clue: the black eye line on the bird. A prothonotary doesn’t have one.

Regardless, I was happy to get the photos. One tops this post, and here’s a closer look.

Blue-winged warbler. Note the black eye line stretching to the beak.

After a long spell at that spot on the trail, we moved on toward my car. At one point, Jim called out: “Stop. Don’t move. Look down.”

Just ahead of me, a black snake was slithering its way across the path. A ratsnake, Jim reported, and it was about four feet long. I wanted no part of that snake, although I did want some video and photos.

Besides birds and snakes, Jim has a good eye for other creatures. He spotted a chipmunk, an Eastern fence lizard and a skink. He also brought along a tick, which he dropped out the window as we drove through Trenton to get back to his place.

That was one satisfying day of birding, more than two hours of tramping the sandy trails of the Huber preserve. I even managed to get a good look at a prairie warbler, not long after I had my close encounter with the snake. 🦅