Butterflies and bugs love New Jersey wildflowers

When I’m on birding walks, I always admire the wildflowers that line the trails and that sometimes blanket big swaths of meadows in vibrant colors. In recent weeks, I’ve seen more and more butterflies, dragonflies and bees sampling the sugars from the blossoms.

I needn’t even leave my home to take in the sights. Swallowtail butterflies have been cruising to the Mexican marigolds in our big garden box and checking out the wild bergamot that’s begun to bloom in our yard. I took the photo atop this post there earlier this month.

Those lovely pink wild bergamot (a.k.a. bee balm) blossoms must be like crack cocaine to butterflies. At Rosedale Park in Pennington, I watched a black swallowtail dive into blossom after blossom.

A black swallowtail butterfly (with yellow splotches and a bit of dark blue on its black wings) dips into a pink wild bergamot blossom.
Black swallowtail feeding on wild bergamot.

Also at Rosedale Park, I watched in fascination as a coneflower mining bee went about its titular duties atop a coneflower. That tiny bee was a new one for me. I got the ID by plugging my photo into the iNaturalist seek app, which has done for plant and insect identification what the Merlin app has done for birds.

A tiny black and yellow coneflower mining bee digs into the central orange blossom of a coneflower. The flower has longer pink leaves below the round central blossom.
Confeflower mining bee “mines” a coneflower at Rosedale Park.

I had more insect and butterfly encounters Saturday while birding at Assunpink Wildlife Management Area. First up was a monarch butterfly, which landed on a thistle blossom a few feet from me.

Orange and black monarch butterfly extracts nectar from a round pink thistle blossom.
The monarch — sporting Princeton University colors! — feeds off a thistle.

I also spotted a butterfly I can’t recall seeing before — a variegated fritillary taking sips from yellow-orange blossoms.

Yellow and black patterened variegated fritillary butterfly lands on an orange flower blossom.
Variegated fritillary getting some grub.

One other insect I caught dining Saturday was a Halloween pennant dragonfly that landed atop a mullein plant with bright yellow blossoms. I try not to anthropomorphize non-human creatures, but I can’t help but see a cartoon-like human face on this sublime flying creature.

Dragonfly with clear wings with black stripes latches on to the top of a mullein plant with yellow blossoms.
Halloween pennant dragonfly grabs onto a mullein plant.

On this site I write mainly about birds and their glorious colors. I share almost as equally in delight over the other creatures sharing the same airspace in field and forest. What a bountiful visual buffet our world provides. 🦋

Indigo buntings a-go-go at Assunpink WMA

Jim and I went in search of dickcissels this morning, heading to Millstone Township in Monmouth County where he had heard tell of those uncommon visitors.

We pulled off Trenton Lakewood Road across from a big field and immediately heard our target. It took a while to spot one, and eventually two dickcissels sat atop a tall evergreen in the middle of the field. Although the birds were a good distance away, I managed to get one fair shot.

Dickcissel singing from atop an evergreen tree. There's a yellow streak on its head and the upper breast is yellow with black "kerchief."
Dickcissel singing from on high.

Those were my first dickcissel spottings since 2024, and I was happy to add them to my log for this year. Dickcissels are common in the Midwest, but only a few of them show up in central New Jersey each year.

Our next stop was not far away at the Assunpink Wildlife Management Area, where I’ve birded many times. We checked the boat launch at the lake in the center of the park but saw not a single bird.

From there, we drove to a meeting center near the airplane navigation beacon that is on top of a hill in a section of the park I had not previously explored. Jim and I headed up a trail with a big soybean field to our right. Indigo buntings announced their presence in song right away.

Aviation beacon on hilltop. It in a circular building and looks vaguely like a bowling pin. A tall pole with two horizontal antennae stands nearby.
The aviation beacon emitted a constant hum.

I would count 16 in our 100-minute visit, the greatest number of indigo buntings I’ve ever logged in an e-Bird checklist. That probably was an undercount, because the indigos were seemingly everywhere.

As we trekked to the summit where the navigation beacon sits, we saw two common ravens pass overhead, watched a flock of red-winged blackbirds pass and heard and saw several indigo buntings.

Indigo bunting eyeing berries.

They were flying about the trees covering the hillsides and studding broad fields of wildflowers. We chased a blue grosbeak back and forth, and I was able to manage only a couple of mediocre photos. I did no better with the buntings.

But as we bottomed out on the trail that took us back to the parking lot, we spotted one indigo in a big mulberry tree. It flew in and out of the tree several times, and I was able to get a few decent shots of him, including the one topping this post.

Two more surprises awaited us back by the parking lot. One was a brown thrasher in a tree where we caught fleeting glimpses of a white-eyed vireo. The other was a scarlet tanager high up in a tree, a treat for me as it was only the second one I’ve seen this year.

A brown thrasher sits on a fat tree branch. The bird is grown, with a prominent beak and a slim tan eye ring.
A youthful looking brown thrasher caught our eyes.
A male scarlet tanager perches on one of several bare branches atop a tree. The bird is a brilliant red with black wings and tail and a gray beak.
Male scarlet tanager high up on tree branches.

I would be remiss if I did not post a photo showing the beautiful field of wildflowers we walked along just below the aviation beacon summit. The flowers brought in bees, butterflies and dragonflies. I’ll devote a separate post to them. In the meantime, I offer a photo that will give you an idea of the beauty of the place. 🦅

A pink garden cosmos flower (with a yellow center) is surrounded by orange and yellow flowers in a field of grassy plants.
A pink garden cosmos is surrounded by orange flowers.

Another routine day of Pole Farm birding

Even an ordinary day of birding at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm can become extraordinary. Today, for example. No unusual species appeared, which was not a surprise during this mid-summer lull when many birds go quiet if not away.

A brilliant blue indigo bunting sits amid green oak leaves atop a tree, with blue sky in the background.
Indigo bunting, one of at least two I observed this day.

I was lucky to catch an indigo bunting singing from atop a low tree in one of the meadows off the central trail. Twice I spotted a blue grosbeak farther up the meadow, but that scamp flew off each time I went for my camera.

When I moved over to the paved Lawrence-Hopewell Trail and headed for the back corner of the park, I spotted a tufted titmouse. The titmouse is a year-round resident, and I typically hear at least one singing on most visits. Rarely, though, do I get a photo. Today, I was able to catch one on camera. I’ve given that bird top billing on this post.

Several American goldfinches were chirping along the trails, and I spotted an Eastern kingbird high up in a tree near the Cold Soil Road parking lot.

Song sparrows and field sparrows serenaded me as I walked the trails, or at least that’s how I interpreted their sweet songs.

A field sparrow sits on top of a bare branch at the top of a tree. The bird's beak is orange. Its upper wing is a rusty brown and the rest of the wing is dark brown with white accents. Its breast is pale taupe.
Field sparrow taking in the morning sun near Blackwell Road.

All of the above and more — red-eyed vireos, American robins, Eastern towhees, et al. — created a cumulative effect as I got back to my car and drove home.

It was indeed an ordinary day at the Pole Farm, typical with just shy of two-dozen species sightings plus coneflowers, wild bergamot, wild carrot and black-eyed Susans lining the trails.

How extraordinary, I mused, that I live so close to such a wonderful park with an abundance of birds, wildflowers, trees and other critters. How wonderful that each visit brings me in touch with the familiar, making days of rarities and surprises even more magnificent. 🦅

More warblers in the New Jersey Pinelands

My buddy Jim and I headed south once more today to the Pine Barrens, hoping to find a summer tanager in Brendan T. Byrne State Forest. In my Subaru Outback, we crawled along some sandy trails and negotiated many large puddles to get deep into the woods.

Alas, no summer tanagers brightened our day, even in a sector of the park where Jim has found them several years in a row.

Our luck changed when we drove to a park campground a few miles away at Pakim Pond. We wandered a couple of trails and entered a section of trees busy with birds.

A black-and-white warbler sings from a bare branch.
B&W warbler, with pine needles behind.

A pine warbler’s call tipped us to the action in the pitch pines, and then the black-and-white warblers showed up. Two were high up and tough to shoot, but popped up on the other side of the road we were standing on and checked out two trees to give us good looks.

After a few minutes, the bird settled onto a single branch and stayed a while. It was a virtual studio portrait session. I found it hard to pick a favorite from the selection of shots I got. I topped the post with a horizontal image that captures not only the bird but the leaves behind it dappled by sunshine. The photo also shows the crusty bark of the trunk of the tree in which the bird parked.

I was also able to get a couple of shots of a pine warbler that landed nearby.

A female pine warbler sits on a thick branch of a pine tree, with pine needles drooping behind her.
Pine warbler, a female lacking the more vibrant yellow of the males.

We made one more stop, leaving the forest to head to the hamlet of Whitesbog, historic home of cranberry and blueberry cultivation. Driving past a. couple of stores and a few homes and through the village’s lone intersection, we headed onto the dirt roads that delineate the bogs outside the town.

Jim was keen to explore the banks, in hopes that the previous day’s heavy storms had coaxed some shore birds inland to the bogs. We stopped in one spot and watched tree swallows skim the water for bugs. After walking over to another bog, Jim got his wish: solitary sandpipers were treading the mud and grasses not covered by water. We also spotted a couple of least sandpipers.

Solitary sandpiper walks along the grassy mud in a cranberry bog. Its shadow is reflected in the water.
This solitary sandpiper wasn’t solitary. Others were close by.

The solitary sandpiper is the “bird of the day” in the Merlin app, and I was happy to make that ID, unexpected as it was. 🦅

A smokey sky trims my birding

WIth smoke from Canadian wildfires blowing into the mid-Atlantic region, I woke up this morning with some irritation in my eyes. With the air quality rating poor, I decided to skip a planned outing with the birds.

I did go out Thursday morning and encountered hazy conditions under filtered sunlight at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

The sun appears as an orange disk in a brown-tinted sky above a few evergreen trees.
The sun appears orange through the smokey haze at the Pole Farm.

Knowing the air quality was deteriorating, I took a shorter walk than usual and thus encountered fewer photo opportunities with our feathered friends.

Plenty of common yellowthroats were singing and a few popped into view. I captured one of them on my camera as it was flying from stalk to stalk a few feet off the trail. I didn’t see the bug in its beak at the time, but it showed up clearly once I got my photos up on screen.

A male common yellowthroat clenching in its beak an elongated orange bug with black eyes.
Mr. Yellowthroat, with breakfast bug.

Other than this yellowthroat, the only other bird I shot was a juvenile Eastern bluebird.

I’m hoping the air will start clearing overnight and that the expected storms late in the day will wipe away the haze — for the birds’ sake and mine. 🦅

Another day in the New Jersey pines

If you’re wondering if warblers are still hanging around in New Jersey in mid-July, the answer is yes. It helps to travel to the Pine Barrens to find them, as my pal Jim and I did this morning.

We headed to the MIchael Huber Prairie Warbler Preserve, stopping in two areas. The first was a dirt road from a turnoff from Sooy Place Road. The dirt road bisects hunting club property, and we pulled off in two spots.

At the first, we heard red-headed woodpeckers calling and soon spotted two of them on a snag. One of them — or perhaps another — flew in close to us a couple of times. I whiffed on the first opportunity but had better luck on the second. The first view I got was the partial one in the photo topping this post. After a minute or so, the bird popped out in full, giving us good looks.

Red-headed woodpecker stretches toward the sky while perched atop a thick, bare tree branch. The bird has a bright red head and a white breast. It has black wings with large white patches on the back halves.
Red-headed woodpecker basking in the sun.

On the second stop, we got out of the car and immediately heard blue grosbeaks singing. A couple of them flew in close, giving us some nice looks.

A male blue grosbeak perches on a tree branch near red berries and green leaves. The bird's body is mostly blue, with a red-orange wingbar and a silver beak.
Male blue grosbeak.

On the other side of the road, a prairie warbler flew into the trees. It was zipping about, and I managed to get a couple of fair shots when it settled in a spot not shrouded by leaves.

Praire warbler perched on a tree branch. The bird has a yellow breast and a mostly yellow head streaked with brown. Wings are grayish with a white wing bar.
Prairie warbler

We moved on to a trail head off Sooy Place Road, near Johnson Place Road, at the southwest corner of the preserve. We heard a single pine warbler a few minutes later as we started a walk three-quarters of a mile up the trail. Our destination was a small bridge where we’d previously seen hooded warblers and prothonotary warblers.

The prothonotaries appear to be long gone, but we were treated to a singing hooded warbler that came in close a few times.

A hooded warbler sits on a tree branch in a gap in green leaves. The bird has a yellow head outlined in black, a yellow breast and greenish wings.
Hooded warbler stopping for a moment in the trees.

We were pleased to be able to find the hooded warbler at this point in the summer. They’ll likely start heading south soon.

We also observed an American redstart, Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice, among others. We were pleased with what we saw and the photo opportunities we got. We had plenty to rehash on the drive north. 🦅

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. 🦅