The Jersey Birder

Birds in the snow: an increasingly rare treat

We had two snowfalls this week, on Tuesday and overnight into this morning. Because the snow has been so scarce the past few winters, I made sure to get outside with my camera in hopes of getting some nice shots of birds in the elements.

I didn’t get a great shot but I didn’t get shut out, either.

Three inches or so greeted us Tuesday morning. I made a short visit to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, but the footing was treacherous and I turned back to the car after a short walk, not having snapped a single frame. I went to Plan B, shooting for a few minutes from inside the house at the feeders out back.

white-throated sparrow eating seed at feeder. — This white-throated sparrow, one of the few I’ve seen at our backyard feeders this winter, paid a nice visit and managed to find a spot amid the house sparrows.

Tuesday’s snow was mostly gone when it began snowing again early this morning. This time, I was more sure of my footing when I got to the Pole Farm.

The first bird I saw was a red-shouldered hawk that often is perched near the Cold Soil Road parking lot. Today, it was up in one of the first trees one passes when leaving the lot, and I was pleased to get a feather-friendly view through the lens.

Red-shouldered hawk in tree. — Red-shouldered hawk, a Pole Farm regular.

While overall I saw only a few birds, six female harriers were out in one of the main fields (one tops this post), and I caught a few Eastern bluebirds along the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail as I returned to my car.

Eastern bluebird on small tree, with snow falling. — With flurries falling, this Eastern bluebird paused atop a spindly tree.

When I returned home, there was a lot of action at the feeders on our front lawn, including the house sparrow and the dark-eyed junco in the gallery below.

In the afternoon, I drove over to Mercer County Park in a vain effort to find bald eagles. The only birds I saw were a great blue heron that flew over the lake, and the ring-billed gull standing on a pier with just a small amount of snow nearby.

I didn’t get the “wow” bird-in-the-snow photo I’d hoped for either day, but the snow was a welcome change in environment, a nice counterbalance to the controlled burn at Mercer Meadows last week. Even better: enough snow melted quickly that I had only minimal shoveling to do.

And speaking of shoveling, I’m hoping to see some Northern shovelers next weekend!

Female house sparrow on snowy branch. — House sparrow

Dark-eyed junco at feeder. — House sparrow

After the fire, the birds return

To keep out those pesky invasive vegetation species, the Mercer County Parks system does a controlled burn early each year at Mercer Meadows. Last week, conditions were right, and several of the meadows were put to the torch.

I visited the Pole Farm yesterday and adjoining Reed Bryan Farm today to check out conditions. Portions of some of the big meadows had been scorched and some were spared, reminiscent of the way farmers rotate their crops.

While a charred scent was in the air yesterday (not so much today), I was pleased to hear and see plenty of birds, albeit on the slower side of an average February day.

The Northern harriers were still swooping over the fields in search of voles, and bluebirds and song sparrows were flitting about. I got one surprise — a trio of Eastern meadowlarks were foraging in a burned out section of one of the central fields. One of them is shown in the photo at the top of this post.

In olden days, wildfires that renewed Mercer Meadows and other sections of New Jersey did their work on a natural pace. Nowadays, the rangers and firefighters do the job, and it’s always nice to see how quickly the birds and grasses recover. The meadows will be verdant again in a few weeks.

View of one of the scorched fields from the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail cutting through the Pole Farm.

Sitting on a park bench, eyeing bald eagles with photo intent

Some outings are long walks, and others are short, each with their own charms. Today, I had a typical walk at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm in the morning. In the afternoon, I headed over to Mercer County Park in hopes of sighting and shooting photos of a few eagles.

It was a short walk from the marina parking lot to the viewing area by a gazebo on a finger of land that juts into the lake. I saw two mature bald eagles soaring overhead as I approached the gazebo. I got off a few quick shots before the birds headed off to the distance.

I parked myself on a bench, and a short while later another pair of eagles appeared almost directly overhead. I was able to shoot up at them as they soared overhead.

The sun was out in full, and I managed to get an a few decent shots, all of which needed to be cropped because the birds were far away. I’m not complaining. Any sighting of a bald eagle is cause for celebration. Any photos I can get are gravy.

Bald eagle soaring behind and below a portion of an American flag. — This was one of the first eagles I spotted, and it came the closest to me of any of them.

Are the birds hinting at spring?

As the dreary days of winter drag on, I’m ever on alert for early signs of spring. Maybe the imminent arrival of Groundhog Day is stoking my curiosity, but I know for sure that certain bird behavior hints that hope springs vernal!

As I stepped out of the house yesterday morning, I heard a cardinal singing somewhere down our street. Although cardinals are a near daily sight in our yard, it had been a long while since I’d heard one singing.

When I got out to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, I spotted sparrows on the ground and in the trees as usual, but I noticed a few savannah sparrows perched on tall grasses and spindly tree branches, as in the top photo. To me, that perching is an early hint of spring.

An even surer sign came toward the end of my walk when, having caught up with my friend Andy on the trail, we spotted a pair of Eastern bluebirds poking in and out of a bird box. While bluebirds stick around most of the year, it’s rare to spot them flitting about a bird box in the dead of winter.

The seeming nesting activity we saw yesterday gives me hope that the songbirds will soon again be singing lustily to ring in spring.

A pair of Eastern. bluebirds check out a nesting box. Any idea what that greenish blob on the roof is?

A long look at a short-eared owl

In my few short years of being a serious birder, owl sightings have been few. I’ve seen short-eared owls flying around sunset a few times and I’ve snatched partial glimpses at long-eared owls tucked deep into the trees.

But last Saturday morning I received an unexpected treat at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. A short-eared owl was perched up in the lone, big tree in the center of one of the main fields, and the bird could be clearly seen even without binoculars.

Landscape at Pole Farm, with snow, tall grasses and lone, bare tree. — You can just make out the form of the owl on the left side of the tree.

The bird, I learned later, stayed up in the tree for several hours, preferring that sunny perch to something low down on the snowy ground. I blasted off several dozen shots on a few camera settings, and I shot from a couple of locations to minimize the chances of small branches obscuring the owl.

Although I didn’t get a straight-on shot showing both or the bird’s beautiful orange eyes in full, I’m satisfied and grateful for the looks I got.

Short-eared owl perched on tree branch. — Best of the lot, and almost a full view of both eyes.

Catching common mergansers in flight

It’s mid-January, and as in much of the country, we are more often than not waking to leaden gray skies in my part of New Jersey. But Saturday dawned gloriously sunny, and I headed out with my camera anticipating excellent shooting conditions.

I stopped first at Audubon’s Plainsboro Preserve, hoping there’d be a variety of ducks on the lake that’s the centerpiece of the park. There were plenty of Canada geese, but not a duck was in sight.

I turned back toward home and stopped in Princeton at the Millstone River Impoundment, where the Delaware and Raritan canal intersects with Carnegie Lake. Bird and photo prospects were better.

Shortly after getting out of my car, I spotted two bald eagles circling over Carnegie Lake. A third eagle showed up a bit later, and I managed a few fair shots of it.

With an airliner flying the background, a bald eagle soars over Carnegie Lake.

What I initially thought was a handful of common mergansers on the lake turned out to be several dozen. As I stood on the shore hoping for eagle fly-bys, merganers started heading my way.

I blasted off several shots over a span of about 10 minutes. The best of the lot, of a female zipping past me, tops this post. I’m pleased with it, one of the sharpest I’ve taken of a bird in flight. A shot of three males is at bottom.

I leave it to your imagination as to whether the female was chasing or eluding the males.

What part of ‘stay on the trails’ don’t you understand?

The Mercer County Parks staff has put up fences at the Pole Farm to remind people to stay on the trails and not to wander off into the woods where long-eared owls have been roosting. I applaud the move.

I was walking up the central trail in shoe-sucking mud this morning when up at the tree line I spotted what appeared to be black boxes. As I approached, I realized what I was seeing were steel barrier fences on each side of the path, a longer group to my left and a smaller group to my right. I also could see a new trail camera, probably motion triggered, back in the evergreens where long-eared owls had been spotted in previous weeks.

Are those owls still there? Maybe. If the rangers are out patrolling for trail scofflaws, as an electronic sign alerts you as you at the juncture of a couple of the park’s main trails, that must mean that enough knuckleheads have tramped off trail and likely have spooked the owls.

I have only seen glimpses of those owls, and each time it was through binoculars from a respectful distance with other birders and photographers. After the fist couple of times I encountered others at the spot, I noticed that the grasses in front of the tree line had been trampled, presumably by owl prowlers who think the rules don’t apply to them.

This is not the first time park personnel have intervened to protect owls. A couple of years back, the staff put up steel barriers to block sections of trees at the old AT&T Building One oval, not far from where the new fences were put in place. People back then were wandering among those evergreens, from what I’ve heard, going right up to the owls to ogle and photograph them.

That boorish behavior has no place at the Pole Farm or anywhere else. We are in effect guests of the wildlife we observe in nature and we need to mind our manners.

The shot that got away

With another wet, wind-driven storm bearing down on the East Coast, I thought I’d better get out for a bit of birding yesterday morning, as I likely wouldn’t have a chance today. I made only a short visit to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, where once again I spotted a female Northern harrier perched atop a bird box near the edge of one of the main trails.

I’ve dubbed this bird Henrietta. I’ve snapped her portrait several times over the past few weeks. Yesterday, after I’d taken a few photos of her and was ready to move on, she surprised me by taking off and flying almost directly overhead.

I rushed to pull my camera up and focus, but my Canon wouldn’t fire. I got an error message and a recommendation to restart, which I did quickly. By then Henrietta was flying east and out of range, and I was disappointed to have missed a chance for a close-in photo of her in flight.

The birding gods took pity on me, however, and sent a Carolina wren to perch in a tree I approached on my way back to the parking lot. I hear Carolina wrens near home most mornings, and I hear them singing virtually every time I visit the Pole Farm. But I could not recall getting a photo of one at Mercer Meadows, at least not in a long time.

This bird was unusually cooperative, perching on a branch and hopping over to another close by, giving me a couple of opportunities to take its picture. So it gets the billboard treatment atop this post.

I drafted this post early yesterday evening, just as the storm came howling in. Our power dipped six or seven times, knocking our WiFi offline. That’s why I’m posting today.

Thank you, little wren, for bringing good cheer. And Henrietta, I’ll see you after the skies calm down.

Chasing the rarest of Jersey birds: the red-flanked bluetail

On this last day of holiday break, I could not resist the siren song of the red-flanked bluetail, a Eurasian native that has, curiously, been hanging out in a residential neighborhood in South Jersey since early December. It’s the first bird of its kind to be reported in the Eastern states.

My friend Laura texted me this morning to ask if I wanted to go birding. The answer, unhesitatingly, was “yes.”

Laura asked if we should take a shot at finding the red-flanked bluetail about 40 miles from our homes. Why not? How many chances in life will we get to find a bird in New Jersey that is visiting from its normal range between Japan and Finland?

Laura drove us down to Whiting, New Jersey, where we joined a scrum of a dozen other birders standing, squatting and sitting in the side yard of a duplex in a residential development in Ocean County.

We waited about 15 minutes before the bird popped out of the holly and onto a low branch at the edge of the backyard. I squeezed off a few hectic frames, and I submit the better of two fuzzy images herein.

The bird returned to the holly and emerged a short time later to land briefly on the ground. I whiffed on that photo opp, but I was later able to spot the bird through a scope trained on her by a kind fellow birder.

Why the wayward bluetail chose this particular yard about 30 miles inland from the Atlantic coast is a mystery. The bird must have sensed that the residents of the house were bird-friendly. They have several bird feeders and a seed bell hanging from a small tree beside the house, which you can see in the photo topping this post.

Their instructions, posted on their patio, were clear: don’t go past the feeders. The stakeout crowd respected that limit, keeping about 20 feet away from the holly tree in which the bird has been living.

Laura spotted the bluetail through her binoculars and patiently talked me through finding her deep in the holly.

After half an hour or so, Laura and I headed back north, hoping to find another rarity: a black-headed gull that has been palling around with the geese at the Mercer Corporate Park in Allentown, New Jersey.

The lakes there were hosting hundreds of Canada geese plus hooded mergansers and American wigeons. No sign of the rare gull — like the bluetail miles from its normal range — but we did not complain.

We’d seen the bluetail, possibly the only chance we’ll ever have to see one. We were happy.

Birding 2024: What lies ahead?

Happy New Year, everyone! I started the year with a good walk at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm (above), excited to begin another year of birding adventures.

The first birds I heard were, predictably, European starlings screeching from the trees across from the entrance to the park. Then a chatty American crow started squawking from another tree just beyond the park’s border.

Turning my gaze and attention to the trail ahead, I was soon greeted by a Northern harrier squeaking from atop a post to my right. She was my first official photo capture for 2024, and she gave several fly-by passes for a few minutes. There was little sunlight slanting through the clouds, so the light was not ideal for a crisp in-flight shot. But I am grateful to have gotten this next photo.

A Northern harrier flies above me Jan. 1, 2024.

Eastern bluebirds came out in force once I reached the tree line on the central path, and there were even more as I looped back to the parking lot on the paved Lawrence-Hopewell Trail portion of the park. It’s always good to see them (and other regulars at the park, like the downy woodpecker and savannah sparrow).

By the end of this year, my goal is to be able to say I’ve gone birding in all 21 counties in New Jersey. I’ve done 10 to date, so I have 11 to go, eight of them in the upper third of the state. I’ll be migrating north several times, as well as making a few forays to the south.

Trips west to visit family are in the offing, so I hope to chalk up a few more counties (and lifers) that way. Whether you’re birding at home, abroad or somewhere in between, may 2024 bring you good luck and joy.