How big was my ‘Big Day’ in 2023?

My 2023 Spring “Big Day” was a lot of fun as I logged 51 species in e-Bird, doing my part to contribute to the crowd-sourced science that makes these annual counts so important in preserving our avian friends.

Unlike last year when I traveled to Cape May County during the World Series of Birding, I stayed close to home this year, never venturing out of Mercer County. But variety abounded, from my own backyard and the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm to the Millstone River Impoundment and the Charles Rogers Preserve in Princeton and the Dyson Tract along the Delaware and Raritan Canal.

The day started at the impoundment, where, thanks to a tip from a fisherman that the bird was headed in my direction, I got the post-topping shot of a great blue heron preparing to land.

One of two green herons spotted at the D&R Canal Dyson Tract.

Next up I made two stops with my birding buddy Laura, first to the Dyson Tract along the canal to see the prothonotary warbler, a lifer for her and a second sighting for me. We also spotted two green herons in the marsh, our first sightings for the year, nearly a year after we had our first sighting of one together last year.

From there we drove to the Pole Farm — my home court, if you will — and in the parking lot ran into Laura’s friend Joe. The three of us meandered up the central fields to the woods and back down the paved Lawrence Hopewell Trail. We were disappointed that the “warbler wall” at the old AT&T Building One site was quiet other than for catbirds. Laura stalked a blackpoll warbler in the evergreens there, and we heard it repeatedly but never saw it.

We recorded it but could not justify doing the same for the Wilson’s warbler that popped up a few times nearby on the Merlin sound app. A bird for another day, if not another year!

A couple of surprises awaited us as we made our way back to the parking lot. First up was the buzzy call of the willow flycatcher, one I’d been hoping to hear since they flew away last summer. We heard the call several times and settled on reporting two of them. I am eager to go back and spot one.

The final surprise came as we reached the car in the parking lot. Something big flew past us and landed on a bare, spikey tree. It then flew into the large tree to the right of the trail out of the lot, and by then Joe had nailed the ID: another green heron.

Late in the afternoon, I made one more foray into the woods, at the Charles Rogers Preserve, tucked behind graduate student apartments on the outskirts of the Princeton University campus. Not much was happening there, although I did spot a female wood duck flying across the marsh from the observation deck at the parking lot.

Twenty-four hours later, I reflect on the day and note that as much as I enjoy my solitary walks, birding is better with a friend, and even better when you make a new one.

A Northern cardinal shows his color at the Charles Rogers Preserve.
A young male orchard oriole at the Rogers preserve.
A double-crested cormorant plies the waters at the Millstone River Impoundment.
A gray catbird grooms itself at the Dyson Tract.

Big days in May: chasing the rare prothonotary warbler

When I first started paying attention to the Spring migration a couple of years ago, I saw sporadic, excited reports of prothonotary warblers being spotted here in New Jersey. What a weird name for a bird, I thought, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to chase all over kingdom come to find one.

A little more than a week ago, reports started coming in that a prothonotary warbler was singing its little yellow heart out along the Delaware & Raritan Canal about five miles from my home. The bird was hanging out in what’s known as the Dyson Tract, a swampy marsh studded with dead trees not far from U.S. Route 1 and close to a major shopping area. The spot is at the convergence of Lawrence Township, Princeton and West Windsor.

On Monday morning, I drove to the spot and parked in a small lot across the canal from the canal keeper’s house. It’s one of the last remnants of the old town of Port Mercer that died out in the mid-1800s as railroads muscled out canals for freight traffic.

I made the short walk along the towpath to look into the swamp where the bird was reported, and Merlin lit up with the bird singing. I couldn’t distinguish its song and, with no one else around to guide me, I took a walk farther into the tract. I was fortunate to hear a yellow-billed cuckoo, my first of the year, and I was happy with that. I emerged from the short trail and headed back along the towpath toward my car around 8 a.m. Three birders, soon to be joined by a fourth, were looking into the swamp. They’d seen the warbler popping up occasionally. I stayed with them for maybe 10 minutes before duty called me to the car, home and, ultimately, the office.

I returned on Wednesday morning, and another birder came by to tell me she had just seen the warbler. She even had a couple of nice photos of it in her camera. Alas, even though the prothonotary kept popping up on Merlin, I could find not a glimpse.

Back I went Friday morning, about 7 a.m., determined to wait the bird out. It was out there, Merlin insisted repeatedly, and I saw a few flashes of yellow far back in the swamp. I was fairly confident (or overly optimistic) that I’d at least seen it airborne. But I wasn’t satisfied.

To change my luck, I wandered farther into the tract, then turned around to take one more shot at the warbler.

After a few minutes, I spotted a small yellow bird, high up in a tree that wasn’t fully leafed out. Excitedly, I pointed my camera toward the bird and blasted off a few shots. Prothonotary warbler? No. A yellow warbler. Nice, but hardly rare and not what I was seeking.

I like to keep moving when I go birding, but I forced myself to stay put, keeping an eye on my iPhone clock as it ticked toward 8 a.m.

And then it happened.

Up in the same tree where I’d seen the yellow warbler, the prothonotary warbler appeared. No question. Bright yellow head and breast, dark wings. The bird was perched up high, and when it turned its head in profile, the sun lit it beautifully.

I clicked a few frames with my camera, then pulled up my binoculars to get a better look. The bird flew off shortly thereafter, and I let out a whoop and pumped my fist in triumph.

A lifer, long anticipated, and a beauty.

My photos were serviceable, not as crisp as I’d like but the bird was a good way off, and I had no complaints.

Today, Saturday, I went back to the Dyson Tract with my friend Laura, who was hoping to add the prothonotary to her life list. Merlin heard the bird repeatedly but we couldn’t see it for quite a while.

The prothonotary warbler singing on Saturday, farther back in the swamp than it had been the previous day.

All of a sudden, Laura spotted it singing at the top of a dead tree in roughly the middle of the swamp. It took me a few seconds before I could spot it, but when I did, there was no mistaking that yellow plumage, distant as it was. I got a few shots off with my camera, even one with the bird’s beak open in song.

Laura has better binoculars than I do, and I was able to get an even clearer view with them.

Our “Big Day” was underway, and we’d leave the Dyson Tract in a happy mood as we headed over to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm for even more adventure. More on that to come!

Can hearing aids make you a better birder?

I had just stepped out of the car at the Reed Bryan Farm parking lot at Mercer Meadows, anticipating the usual gaggle of European starlings that congregate in the large tree near the barn beside the lot. I hadn’t even opened the back-seat door to fetch my camera and binoculars when I heard the loudest, clearest call ever of an Eastern meadowlark.

It had to be close, almost certainly overhead in that big tree. Even as I strained to spot the lark, my thoughts were preoccupied with a question: were the hearing aids I got the day before making an immediate difference in my birding?

The process that eventually brought me to an audiologist for a hearing test earlier this month was long in developing. I’d had a hearing test in a mobile lab several years ago. I had only the slightest hearing loss then, almost certainly attributable to cranking up my stereo at home and several amps-at-11 gigs in a garage band.

Now that I’m eligible for senior citizen discounts, I started thinking I should get my hearing checked again. I gradually realized that I’ve increasingly had trouble hearing across the table at crowded, noisy restaurants, and my wife and I often find ourselves shouting “What?” from room to room at home.

But what pushed me to deciding to get tested was birding.

This pastime/obsession of mine started primarily as a visual exercise: see bird, ID bird. But the more I learned about birds, the more I came to appreciate their songs and calls and to take pleasure in hearing the variety and differences.

Although I’ve trained myself to listen more attentively while on bird walks, I’ve known that I’m missing out on a lot of the activity, particularly the higher-pitched calls. I use the wonderful Merlin app virtually every day, and even allowing for the occasional false positive, I can see there’s a gap between what my iPhone and my ears pick up.

As blue-gray gnatcatchers have returned to New Jersey during spring migration, I’ve seen Merlin light up with them many times. I know I’ve heard them in the past, but this year I hadn’t heard them at all, even as a friend pointed one out in the woods the other day.

All of this is to say that I convinced myself a couple of months back that for the benefit of birding alone, I should get my hearing checked.

After checking my benefits through work, I made an appointment at the Penta hearing office in Princeton and the audiologist gave me a thorough test. The result was not a surprise: although my hearing for normal ranges is OK, my high frequency reception needs a boost and I need help filtering out background noise.

That diagnosis brought a recommendation that I invest in a state-of-the-art pair of Starkey brand hearing aids, which I picked up Monday afternoon. I’m still adjusting to having them in my ears. I have noticed and sometimes been startled by what I’m hearing and hearing more clearly.

The clack of the keyboard as I type this post. The plop of my bare feet on the wood floors in the house. The squish of the carpet as I enter our suite of offices at work.

I even heard the clatter of a guitar pick as it bounced on the floor below my feet the first night, and this morning I heard our deep freeze humming in our pantry for the first time.

On the trails at Mercer Meadows yesterday, it was hard to judge just how much of a difference the hearing aids made. I am reasonably certain I was hearing distant calls that I probably wouldn’t have heard the day before, and that I was alerted to nearby rustling in branches that I wouldn’t otherwise have noticed.

As for the meadowlark, I finally spotted it on a branch near the top of the tree, but it flew off (of course!) just as I raised my camera. However, as I returned to the parking lot about an hour later, from fairly far off I could hear the lark’s call again and spotted one (I’m betting it was the same bird) in the same spot as before.

I was able to walk up the trail, come around the corner of the barn and snap a few shots, the best of which perches on top of this post.

I will make mental notes in the coming weeks of how these newfangled computer-chip hearing aids affect my birding, but I’m already convinced they will be a big help.

I knew I had some hearing loss and I acknowledge the inevitable effects of aging, but if anyone asks me what led me to get hearing aids, I will reply truthfully: It was for the birds.

The warblers are coming. Time to look up!

Spring migration has begun, and the warblers have started arriving here in central New Jersey. Within the past few days, I’ve seen palm warblers, a yellow warbler and common yellowthroats, all welcome returnees to my neck of the woods.

As these birds and more arrive, I need to remind myself as I wander through the woods to look up to the tippy-top branches of the tallest trees. That’s where many warblers congregate, if only for fleeting moments.

At the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm on Thursday, I spotted movement well above me and was delighted to watch four palm warblers flitting about on the upper half of a tall tree at an intersection of two paths near the old AT&T Building One oval.

I get a lot of photos like this one, a from-the-bottom view of a.palm warbler.

During migration, I must not only train my eyes but also crane my neck to spot arriving species. As a result, I take many “bird butt” photos and other shots showing the undersides of our feathered friends.

If I’m patient and lucky (not necessarily in equal proportion), I’ll get a fairly good shot that pleases me, like the one of the palm warbler topping this post.

My little buddies, the common yellowthroats, are lower-altitude birds. I typically spot them at eye level, give or take a few feet, in the bushes or out in the grassy meadows.

As I typically find it with birds that come and go from season to season, I’ll hear them for a day or two before I spot them. That’s the case again this spring with the yellowthroats, ovenbirds and Eastern towhees that have come back the past several days. I’m due to hear a wood thrush any day.

Spring is a great time to see old friends like the first-of-the-year catbird I saw this morning, and to anticipate new friends in species I’ve yet to spot. Y’all pay attention, Kentucky warblers and Louisiana waterthrushes!

My first-of-the-year catbird, which I spotted in a tree moments before I heard its telltale kitty cry of “mew.”

Bueller? Bueller? Birds at the parking lot

As if to prove there’s no rhyme or reason to birding, consider the parking lot birds that appear just as you’re about to leave the birding location or, even rarer in my experience, those who show up just as you arrive.

That latter scenario played out Thursday morning when I pulled into the Cold Soil Road parking lot for the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, got out of the car, turned around and — bam! — a killdeer was about 10 feet from me.

Even more amazing, the bird didn’t take off immediately. I had enough time to grab my camera out of the back seat, flip the camera to “on,” raise it, aim and fire a couple of quick shots.

I had seen a killdeer once before at the Pole Farm a year or two back, and Merlin had occasionally lit up with their calls in the past few weeks. I couldn’t distinguish those calls, nor could I spot one of the birds nearby, no matter how hard I tried.

But my luck — and it was pure luck — changed Thursday morning.

Two days earlier, the magic bird appeared at the end of my journey. As I walked back to my car through the Pole Farm’s central path, I wondered if I’d be able to log a house sparrow. In my first visits a few years ago, I logged more than a few, and I have since doubted that those sightings were accurate. More likely they were song sparrows.

House sparrows are unusual at the Pole Farm, at least once you get beyond the parking lot. But again, logic be damned, I found one Tuesday. Or maybe it found me.

I was in my car, having closed out my e-Bird report and was ready to shift into gear and pull out of the lot. I looked up. Dead ahead on the wooden rail bumper that frames one side of the lot sat a male house sparrow.

Mr. House flew off a few seconds later, and I re-opened e-Bird and added the sighting.

Ferris Bueller had it right.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Winter gives way to Spring in New Jersey

Winter has receded and Spring has sprung in central New Jersey, and we’re seeing the changing of the guard in the birds that frequent these parts. Warblers are starting to arrive, although I have yet to get a confirmed sighting in my recent outings.

Who’s on the way out? White-throated sparrows and American tree sparrows will soon be gone. Within the last week I’ve seen just one of the latter and a few of the former, at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm and at our main feeder at home. Dark-eyed juncos are gone from the parks but are lingering at the house, but won’t for long. Taking their places in abundance are my friends the field sparrows, one of whom sings out at the top of this post, and chipping sparrows.

At John A. Roebling Park at Trenton marsh, I was thrilled to see great egrets fly in for the first time in many months. An even greater treat at the park was to watch three Caspian terns flying over and diving into Spring Lake. They are infrequent visitors in Mercer County.

Caspian tern pulling a sunfish out of Spring Lake
Caspian tern soaring over Spring Lake
A great egret sits high up in a tree at Trenton marsh

After finally finding the parking lot, I paid my first call to the Millstone River Impoundment in Princeton on Saturday. Although I didn’t see any warblers, I was able to see several recently returned double-crested cormorants and more great egrets.

A double-crested cormorant floats toward Lake Carnegie at the Millstone River Impoundment.

It’s a wonderful time of year, and the variety of birds will be increasing in the coming weeks as the great migration heats up. I look forward to it.

As the moon recedes shortly after sunrise, a red-winged blackbird sings its raucous song at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

Caspian terns pay us a visit at Trenton marsh

After the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, one of my favorite places to bird is the Trenton marsh. After seeing an alert that Caspian terns were spotted there on Saturday, I drove down as the sun came out that afternoon and was treated to a delightful display by these unusual visitors.

The terns are fast flyers, and I watched as three of them jetted about, looking for fish to pluck out of Spring Lake. The lake is one of the main features of Trenton marsh, and I need to make some distinctions for those interested in visiting.

A Caspian tern soars over Spring Lake at John A. Roebling park, part of Abbott Marshlands.

The marsh — more formally Abbott Marshlands — sprawls from Trenton into neighboring Hamilton and even a bit of Burlington County, and there are a few entrances. The one I usually visit is at the end of Sewell Avenue, just off Broad Street in Trenton, where you’ll find the John A. Roebling Park sector of the marsh.

From the parking lot, Spring Lake is off to the left and the marsh to the right. A pair of mute swans are in residence on the marsh, and they’ll occasionally pop over to the lake. The marsh is a great spot for herons, egrets, kingfishers and several varieties of ducks (mallard, American black, wood, e.g.) while the lake often has ring-necked ducks, gadwalls and gulls.

A great egret sits at the top of a tree, high above the Trenton marsh.

The narrow band of trees between the lake and marsh during migration seasons teems with birds: sparrows, wrens, kinglets, palm warblers and more. There’s a straight path along the lake edge, with a few cutovers to a more undulating path to the right that goes through the trees and offers openings to the marsh edge.

Ospreys like the one above and bald eagles often visit Abbott Marshlands.

Up the path is a junction at which you can turn left to walk around the lake or cross a narrow concrete bridge that brings you to the wooded Island Trail that takes you to the back stretches of the marsh. The trail is marked with red blazes (or are they orange?) and there’s a turnoff to the white Annabelle Trail, which I often take. It’s short, offers a nice mix of woods and marsh, and is less confusing than the red trail, on which I got lost on one of my first visits and seemed to trek forever before finding my way back.

An old friend returns, and a new one arrives

I stepped out of the car and turned toward the Delaware and Raritan Canal just a few yards behind me, and I heard something I wasn’t expecting. It took a few seconds before I could train my binoculars on the source of the spondaic call: a small green bird on the stalk of a short, barren tree.

Once I spotted the bird, my brain fully kicked in as I clearly heard and identified the slightly buzzy “Fee-bee! Fee-bee!” of the Eastern phoebe. The phoebe — shown above singing from the near bank of the canal across from the old Port Mercer canal house — was my first of the year and brought me instant joy.

The bird stayed in place for a minute or so before flying to another tree closer to the Quaker Road bridge, busy with morning commuter traffic headed to and from Princeton.

I was delighted to see the phoebe for its own sake, but also because when I started this website and blog two years ago, the Eastern phoebe was the first bird I wrote about, in my second post.

The phoebe sighting was a bonus. I had come to visit the Dyson Tract, along the stretch of the canal where Princeton meets West Windsor, a half mile or so from a cluster of shopping centers along U.S. Route 1. What drew me were recurring reports that a tundra swan was in the area, and after the phoebe flew off, I looked for the swan on both sides of the bridge.

No luck.

So I turned away from the bridge and headed along the towpath toward the wooden fences that mark the entrance to the Dyson tract. In a minute or two, I spotted the swan stationed on the opposite bank, grooming itself.

Tundra swans are rare in these parts, and I had only seen one previously. That was last month in neighboring Monmouth County, where I spotted it along with two trumpeter swans (also lifers) and a mute swan at Assunpink Wildlife Management Area.

I crept forward to take a few stealth shots of the swan through the branches of the trees and shrubs along the bank. Then the swan cooperatively started edging off the bank and swimming toward the bridge, bringing me a clear view through a gap in the branches.

Magnificent, I thought to myself, breaking into a big grin. As a light rain started to fall, I knew my visit would be a short one, but within the first five minutes I had two great avian encounters. I call that a good day.

A tundra swan, with its distinctive black beak, floats on the Delaware and Raritan Canal at West Windsor, New Jersey.

Finding birds on new trails

With a nod to Robert Frost, I’ve always been one to take the road less traveled, seeking new paths even in familiar places. I’ll approach an intersection and wonder, “Where does this road go?” More often than not, I’ll turn and drive on to see what new wonders await me.

So it is with the paths I walk, camera in hand, while birding in my favorite places. It’s rare for me to walk the same path twice in a row, and even if I do, I will switch from clockwise to counterclockwise to get a fresh perspective on the second trip.

That’s my m.o. at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, and after birding steadily there the last three years, I’ve walked just about every path there is. But not all.

This morning, I drove to the Reed Bryan side of the park and walked down the central path toward a small bridge where I typically turn to the left on either side of the woods straddling a creek.

While I did turn left briefly to follow some song sparrows flitting through the trees, I decided it was time to walk one section of trail I had not walked previously.

I turned around, crossed the path to the parking lot and walked uphill past the Reed Bryan observation platform and reached the boardwalk from which I usually turn off to head to the Pole Farm side of the park.

Not today.

An American tree sparrow, not far from Federal City Road.

I kept on going along the boardwalk and followed the path to the end of the woods, where on previous hikes I always turned around. Today, I kept going and walked the trail until it reached Federal City Road. At that junction, I turned right to head back along Federal City to the parking lot, a stretch I had never walked either.

With the path paralleling the road only a few feet away, I wasn’t sure I’d encounter many birds. Surprisingly, I did.

Tree sparrows and song sparrows — one of the latter is at the top of the post — presented themselves off to the right, and a Northern harrier startled me by flying up out of the field.

While I have seen those species many times, it was fun to know their range extends to that sector of the park that I had not bothered to explore before.

And that has made all the difference.

A female Northern harrier flies low over a field at the Reed Bryan Farm side of Mercer Meadows.

Advanced birding fever: Chasing a rare sparrow

Today afforded a unique opportunity to merge two of my favorite pursuits, baseball and birding. In the process, I got a glimpse of a bird common in the central plains of this continent but a rare visitor here in New Jersey, the Harris’s sparrow.

I’d been following reports of a Harris’s sparrow hanging out with white-crowned sparrows in a field in East Windsor, and I hoped the bird would stick around long enough for me to spot him over the weekend.

This morning, I picked up my friend Laura at 8 o’clock, and we drove about 25 minutes to Hancock Field, a youth baseball field. From the parking lot, we took a short walk along the side of the field to where a few other birders were gathered, their scopes pointing away from the diamond and across an open field to a row of tangled bushes.

We were fortunate to arrive when the bird was active. Almost immediately, the birders were excitedly calling out the bird’s movements: off to the right, hopping up, facing away, on the ground in front of the brush, etc.

I set up Laura’s scope, and she was able to spot Mr. Harris quickly. (That’s Laura in the photo at the top of the post, with fellow birder “Old Sam Peabody” partially visible behind her.)

Although I picked up my Canon at one point, the bird was too far out of camera range for me to even try a shot. I contented myself with seeing the bird through the scope and otherwise taking in the experience. I did so while standing a few feet from home plate in the baseball field bullpen, making the moment doubly enjoyable.

I doubt I’ll ever get birding fever in such an advanced stage that I’d rent a helicopter to spot a rare bird in Nevada. But following up on eBird alerts and postings on Facebook and GroupMe birding channels has revealed twitcher tendencies.

The great thing about today’s brief trip was that it was great fun — a great ride out and back with a good friend, book-ended around an enthusiastic shared experience with other birders enjoying the sight of a rare creature in our part of the world.