The Jersey Birder

A wonderful morning at the Pole Farm, harrier hotspot

I wrote recently about days when photo opportunities are few. As if to restore balance to the universe, Mother Nature smiled on me today with good morning light and encounters with a couple of photogenic birds.

Knowing that time was limited “because work,” I took the quickest route to the closest place, the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. As I approached the drive to the parking lot, I spotted a large bird landing on some of the overhead wires that run parallel to Keefe Road. It was a red-shouldered hawk, almost certainly the same one I’d seen near that spot a few days ago.

I stopped the car, hopped out, grabbed my camera and braced myself on the roof rack of my Subaru. The bird was initially facing away from me into what little sun there was, then did a 180-degree turn in my direction. That afforded me a chance to get a few profile shots.

And away she goes: the harrier flies up the path.

I got back in the car, parked in the lot and began making my way up the central path. I’d gone maybe 1/5th of a mile, logging the hawk and a few crows in my e-Bird app. I looked up from my iPhone and was surprised to see a Northern harrier on the path about 30 yards ahead of me. As soon as I went for my camera, the bird took off and flew ahead.

That may have been my best shot at a shot of the bird, I thought, but I got lucky. The sun shone more brightly, and I walked farther up the path, spotting the harrier on the right edge. As I advanced, she took off once more and landed even farther up the trail.

Ring-necked pheasant, the first I’ve seen in maybe a year.

I took a look through my binoculars at the dark blob by the edge of the grass and was startled to see a white ring around the bird’s neck. It wasn’t the harrier, which was a little way away, but a ring-necked pheasant. That was the day’s bonus bird, which soon disappeared into the grass.

Creeping up slowly, I got a few shots of the harrier sitting on the ground. She would only tolerate my presence for a short while and took off again to fly over the fields. To my delight, she flew back closer to me, enabling me to get a few more shots, and I have to say I am happy with them.

On so many days, I see harriers at the Pole Farm or on the Reed-Bryan Farm side of Mercer Meadows, but they typically stay out of range of my camera or the light is poor. While in the field, I’m never sure how sharp and clear the images are, but once I loaded the card on my laptop at home, I knew I’d had a pretty good day. I’m happy to share these images with you.

Bluebirds bring happiness

The sun came out in full force this Sunday morning, and the temperature was a brisk 28 degrees Fahrenheit as I headed to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

The park’s paths offer a few turning points, and the first one to confront is just up from the Cold Soil Road parking lot: either go up the central path through the main fields, or turn left down the alley of trees that lead toward the observation deck.

I was planning to go straight, but then I spotted two warbler-like birds heading off to the left and perching atop a couple of the trees along the alley. What the heck — I’ll go down the alley, I decided.

It turned out to be a fortuitous choice. As I emerged from the alley and approached the observation deck, I spotted the Eastern bluebirds topping this post at their own post, the one holding what presumably is their bird-box home.

Other bluebirds were perching on the observation deck, only to be flushed by a jogger who climbed to the top platform. I walked past the deck, eventually to return and get a chance for several shots of more bluebirds posing on the crossbeams.

Even more bluebirds greeted me as I returned to my car.

One can’t help but smile at seeing bluebirds. They always bring joy.

An Eastern bluebird soaks up the sun atop the observation deck at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm on Nov,. 19, 2023.

Some days birding, starlings are the best you get

A small percentage of my birding excursions give me a goose egg: no birds spotted whatsoever. Such outings are rare, and I can almost predict when I’ll get that result.

Time of day is the most reliable predictor. On off-work days either my wife will shoo me out of the house or I’ll head out of my own volition. But when I get to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm at 2 in the afternoon, I know that birds will be scarce. They are most active in the morning and some emerge an hour or so before sundown. But when it’s mid-afternoon, most birds there are hunkered down.

Earlier this month, I arrived at the Pole Farm at 2:20 p.m. one day to get some air, and that’s about all I got. I spotted six turkey vultures overhead and heard two blue jays in just under half an hour, when I decided to call it a day.

Some mornings can make for slim pickings, too, such as one early this week. As I drove in to the Pole Farm, I did my usual scan to see if anything was flying. All I could spot were 15 starlings lining the roof of the red barn by the Cold Soil Road parking lot.

Only 10 minutes after sunrise, the temperature was around freezing, and there was a breeze, which I recognized as not an ideal combination for birding success. My hunch was right.

In the 30 minutes I spent there, the only other birds I logged on e-Bird were two Canada geese that flew overhead. As I got back to the parking lot, I spotted a hawk in a big tree to the right of the park entrance and walked over that way. It was a red-shouldered hawk, probably the same bird I’ve seen in that tree many times in the past. It stated squawking and eventually flew off after I’d only had a chance to get a couple of branch-obscured photos of it.

Back to the car I went, and I saw three starlings high up in a tree just off the main path. I snapped a couple of frames of them, and one tops this post. That was as good as it got photographically that day.

This morning, I spent about half an hour at the Charles Rogers Preserve in Princeton, and it was quiet again. I spotted a great blue heron far across the central marsh and snapped a couple frames, more so to check the camera than to get a good shot. I was disappointed not to see any ducks, wood or otherwise, that are often present in the marsh much of the year.

I didn’t lift my camera the remainder of my half-hour walk, as birds were seemingly in hiding. But I did luck out — I had heard the cry of what I thought might be a pileated woodpecker as I headed toward the red trail, and as I was on my way back I spotted one checking out some of the trees.

The bird was fairly small for a pileated, but there was no mistaking its magnificent crest through my binoculars. The bird popped from tree to tree, circling around the back of each. Even if it had stayed on my side, I wouldn’t have been able to get a clear shot through the tangle of branches between us.

Thus ended another outing with no useable photos, a mild disappointment vastly painted over by the thrill of spotting the pileated woodpecker, the first I’ve seen in several months.

Even if I don’t see or hear any birds on an outing, it’s still worth getting outside for a little exercise and communing with nature. And I can always check the action at my feeders when I get home. A downy woodpecker is hacking away at our suet feeder as I write this sentence.

Happy birding, everyone!

Kaboom! Birding while hunters overrun the area

My birding buddy Laura and I headed to the Assunpink Wildlife Management Area on Saturday, hoping to explore the expanses of the lake and it surrounding woods.

As we drove along Imlaystown-Hightstown Road, we knew something was not quite right. Everywhere we looked were pickup trucks and SUVs disgorging hunters in blaze orange and camo garb, shotguns crooked over their shoulders.

Unwittingly, we’d stumbled into hunting season.

We drove into the boat launch area at Assunpink Lake, gazing out onto flocks of ruddy ducks plying the waters. But every few minutes, we’d hear the crack of shotgun fire in the middle distance.

One of the scores of ruddy ducks at Assunpink Lake.

Another friendly birder, bedecked in orange vest, recommended that we avoid the eastern end of the lake as it was it was overrun by hunters seeking to bag pheasants.

Laura and I wanted no part of the hunters’ gathering, so we drove to the west edge of the lake, where there’s a wide open parking area. We stuck around to find more ruddy ducks and a few other birds before decamping for nearby Stone Tavern Lake.

Stone Tavern Lake was even more densely packed with hunters, and we watched cringingly as one hunter’s dog paddled after a wounded duck on a back channel. We drove off before watching the inevitable conclusion.

From there, we headed to our second planned destination, Mercer Corporate Park in Robbinsville, with its two small lakes that can be magnets for waterfowl. We saw scores of Canada geese, sweeping our field of vision in vain for cackling geese that surely must be floating among their larger cousins. It was to no avail, but we did spot an immature bald eagle flying high overhead, reasonable consolation for our continued futile search for the cacklers.

Immature bald eagle soaring above Mercer Corporate Park.

Asssunpink Lake has provided some thrills in the past, but I’m not going back until after hunting season. I don’t begrudge the hunters the pheasants, ducks and geese they bag, but I’d rather shoot birds with my camera.

Courage or stupidity: mockingbird v. hawk

After taking a walk at the Reed Bryan Farm side of Mercer Meadows today, I was reminded of the time when my father and I played golf with two Jesuit priests from my high school. To my great surprise, one of the priests became greatly agitated at the other, who as I recall stepped into the line of the other’s putt on one of the greens.

In today’s episode that triggered this memory, a Northern mockingbird set about harassing what appeared to be a fairly young red-tailed hawk perched on a tree branch. I spotted the hawk from behind a line of trees and then crossed over a footbridge to get a better look.

I was surprised to see a mockinbird darting about the branches of the same tree (see lead photo), only a foot or two away from the hawk, which was at least four times the mockingbird’s size. At one point, the mockingbird darted at the hawk and pecked its wing. The hawk seem unfazed, keeping its cool, unlike the Jesuit who balked when the other crossed his putt path.

Fool or hero? This mockingbird didn’t budge the hawk.

I have to hand it to the mockingbird: he had cojones grandes. Courage or stupidity? I can’t say. But the hawk, seemingly nonplussed, continued its evening observations, and the mockingbird eventually moved on. So did I.

The red-tailed hawk, unperturbed and unmoving.

A bird’s gotta eat

I’m delighted to be able to get back out onto the trails again, and I’ve been building back my stamina. This morning, I did a nearly 1.5 mile loop out at the Pole Farm, and at my slower pace, I’m learning to enjoy how it brings me unexpected pleasures in birding.

The photo atop this post is a prime example. I drove over to Colonial Lake Park just a couple of miles away here in Lawrence Township, knowing that I could park close the lake and not have to overtax myself in walking. The park also has benches that I can park on whenever I need a break.

I had scanned most of the lake for what few birds were on the water. As I looked toward the end of the lake that’s close to U.S. 1 Business, I spotted a great egret plying the shallows near the lake’s edge. I wandered down toward it, being careful not to spook it by making any sudden movements.

I stood back from the bird about 50 feet away, propped my cane against my leg and brought up my camera. Paying me no obvious heed, the bird kept strutting in the shallow water, taking aim at whatever was stirring below. I took several shots of the bird stalking, and then — bang! — it struck. I blasted away, not knowing what the egret had plucked from the muck.

In my fully mobile days, I probably would have taken a few shots and walked on. But since I’m sporting a cane these days, I decided to stay a while to increase my odds of a good shot.

That’s what happened. Once I got home, I pulled up the image to discover that the egret had snagged a tadpole, one that will never grow up to be a frog.

Another day I headed over to Veterans Park in Hamilton, where the lake attracts lots of geese and ducks. My friend Laura and I had gone there to see if we might catch site of a rare-to- Mercer-County dunlin that other birders had been seeing the previous few days. We did get to put the dunlin on our life lists, and we also managed to catch a double-crested cormorant in the act of catching and eating a fish.

The fish put up a fight, or maybe the cormorant just liked thrashing it about. In any event, the struggle lasted long enough for me to get a couple of illustrative frames.

Those back-to-back episodes of birds getting their protein quotient reminded me that critters prey on other critters, a basic tenet of nature.

For contrast, while walking at the Pole Farm this morning, I was able to shoot a few frames of a yellow-rumped warbler snacking on berries. There was a lot less drama in that scene, and I enjoyed it.

Yellow-rumped warbler having breakfast at the Pole Farm.

Adventures of a three-legged birder

Medical challenges rudely interrupted my summer, but thanks to excellent care and support by doctors, nurses, therapists and my family and friends, I’ve been able to return to the parks and fields for the fall.

One major difference: because of a balky knee, I now must walk with a cane, and I can’t tramp around as far as was I able to do three months ago. But by making sure I plant my feet stably, I can still see sharply through my binoculars and fire away with my camera, even with the lens zoomed at its maximum.

This morning, I made my first venture back to the Reed-Bryan Farm side of Mercer Meadows park. It was here on July 17 that I aborted my visit after getting out of the car and feeling less than my best, beginning what would be a long exile from birding.

Today, I pulled into one of the handicapped spots and put up my temporary disabled parking pass. I was immediately greeted as usual by squawking European starlings, and I could hear blue jays shrieking in the distance — in other words, all was normal.

A Savannah sparrow perches on a branch Oct. 8 as fall color begins to show itself.

I then headed past the big red barn by the gates to the main trail and did a slow, three-legged stroll with my cane downhill. I was thrilled to hear and see a few Savannah sparrows flitting about in the tall grasses. The vegetation was close to shoulder high, probably double what it was when I was last at the park in July.

I hoped I might see a Northern harrier, as they have returned to Mercer Meadows/Reed-Bryan/Pole Fam in recent weeks. I wasn’t that lucky in my brief walk, a quarter mile down the trail and then back to the lot. But I was pleased to spot a Northern mockingbird in a tree along the trail, the same area where I typically find them much of the year. Passing birders pointed out three American kestrels perched on a distant tree, out of camera range but still a thrill to see.

Northern mockingbird hanging out along the trail.

I made a couple of short walks at the Pole Farm side of the park in previous weeks, and I’m working on building up my endurance each time I go out. I’ve had good photo opportunities at Colonial Lake in Lawrence Township, where the lake is close to parking, and benches are nearby for when I need to take a break.

I hope to resume seeing my birding buddies on the trails (I saw one this morning) as I build up my stamina. I’ve missed that camaraderie along with the birds these past few months. But I’m back out there, as shown in the selfie topping this post that I took this morning, feeling healthy, happy and grateful.

A double-crested cormorant spreads its wings on Colonial Lake on Oct. 1.

Inspiration from a goldfinch with a disability

Since I am dealing with temporarily limited mobility and walking with a cane, I felt a kinship with a male American goldfinch that came to our nyjer seed feeder this afternoon.

On a beautiful late summer day, I couldn’t resist parking in a chair on our patio, hoping to spot a wide variety of birds, from the regulars to, with luck, a warbler transiting my part of New Jersey.

It was breezy, so other than a gaggle of jabbering house sparrows, few birds showed up during the 45 minutes I was on watch. The highlight came when a male goldfinch, nicely lit by the sun, arrived and perched atop the nyjer feeder. I got a nice look at him through my binoculars, and I zeroed in on his left foot.

Something wasn’t right.

While his right foot clamped him atop the feeder, he held the left foot up. It appeared mangled, almost pancaked. The bird surveyed the area without wavering, and I wondered if he’d be able to grab onto the feeder tube and have a bite to eat.

Not to worry. The little guy flew down onto the tube and ate heartily. I didn’t have my Canon camera with me, so I tried my best by zooming in with my iPhone. If you look carefully at the photo topping this post, you can see him left and slightly below center, roughly on a line with the bottom of the suet feeder to the right. The sun was shining through the feeder, throwing a shadow, which explains the black band below his neck.

I was impressed at how this little creature with a handicap was adapting and making his way through the world regardless.

That’s an inspiration for all of us living with handicaps, temporary or permanent.

Thanks, little bird, for showing me the way as I regain strength on my left side.

Chasing a nemesis bird with birding author Julia Zarankin

If you are reading this post, you’re either already a birder or taking your first steps on the path to becoming one. Even if neither of those situations applies, I recommend that you read a wondeful book on discovering the joys of birding: Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder: A Memoir, by Julia Zarankin.

Julia is a Toronto-based writer and lecturer and an avid birder. I happened onto her book in the most serendipitous of ways.

Several weeks ago, I received an out-of-the-blue email from Julia, who had seen one of my Mercer Meadows reports on e-Bird. The blue grosbeak is a nemesis bird for her, one that maddeningly has eluded her view, even with her high-quality Zeiss binoculars.

I saw plenty of blue grosbeaks at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm last year, and as spring wore on this year I was hearing them and wondering when I’d see one. I finally spotted one high up in a tree on the Reed Bryan Farm side of the park one morning, and Julia spotted that report.

She was coming to the Princeton area to visit friends and asked me for pointers on where to spot one of the grosbeaks. I wrote back with my best instructions and offered to meet her at the park when she got to town.

On a Saturday morning, we met in the parking lot and headed down the trail. While we saw plenty of birds on our walk (her affable husband, Leon, joined us), we didn’t see or hear a single blue grosbreak.

Darn.

But if you read Julia’s book, you’ll know that missing your target bird is part of the birding game. Appreciate what presents itself to you in the moment.

As we walked back to our cars, we traded notes on people we knew in common at Princeton University, where I work and she had gotten her Ph.D. That’s how I found out Julia is a writer (widely published in Canada) and asked if she’d written any books.

That’s when she mentioned “Field Notes,” which I ordered on Amazon later that day.

Julia is as delightful a writer as she is a person. The book isn’t just about birding. She writes about her upbringing in Ukraine during the late years of the Soviet Union, her years as an immigrant in Canada, the breakup of her first marriage, finding new love with Leon and their ambitious travels.

Julia is a wonderful storyteller. I found a lot of commonality between her early experiences at birding and my own, including feelings of inadequacy from misidentifying or not recognizing birds in front of other birders (like the time I thought what might be something exotic turned out to be a male house finch).

The book recounts with good humor some of her misadventures netting and banding birds and camping out in wilderness areas for birding research. Julia also notes the joy of discovering the abundance of birds near home. I’m itching to drive to Toronto to visit some of her favorite spots.

To me, Julia represents the best of birders: a kind and caring advocate for birds, curious and eager to see more of them and appreciate their magnificence, and willing to share her knowledge (without resorting to “birdsplaining”).

Take my advice: get the book. You’ll meet a new friend in Julia, and maybe you’ll be fortunate enough to meet her some day in the wild as I was.

These dutiful parents must be exhausted!

From my indoor perch I’ve been watching a pair of house wrens hour after hour making furious sorties from the birdhouse suspended from our larch tree, in search of food for what I presume is a brood of wee offspring.

The parents are relentless in their mission, darting in and out. I figure they resemble any human couple getting a handle on a round-the-clock feeding schedule for their newborn.

My wife and I know how tiring that loving challenge can be, and we salute Mr. and Mrs. Wren for their devotion. We also wish them a good night’s sleep!