Chasing bobolinks and wrapping up a record month

I’ve never had a better May for birding than this one. By spotting three double-crested cormorants in a tree at the Millstone River Impoundment in Princeton today, I logged my 100th species for Mercer County.

The numbers are all well and good, especially since I had an eight-day stretch in which I didn’t have an opportunity to got birding. But what mattered more are the end-of-the-month highlights that came Saturday. My friend Jim pointed me north to Hunterdown County and the Lazy Brook Greenway near Flemington. Objective: bobolinks.

Wooden fence through the grass fields, with modest-sized tree down the way.
Looking down the trail toward the only tree in the section of the greenway we visited.

The greenway features a wide open grassland bisected by a wood fence. Jim and I took the trail from the parking lot to the fence. We soon heard and saw bobolinks, lots of them.

The wind was strong — my baseball cap was blown off my head, and Jim’s followed about 10 minutes later — and the grasses waved beneath a beautiful blue sky.

The bobolinks zipped about, hovered briefly in the stiff wind, and dove into the grass. I tried shooting them as they flew overhead, but that was tough going. Even shooting as they were sitting on the fence was a challenge. The wind made my long lens wobble.

I logged 30 bobolinks, one of which tops this post. I also noted several red-winged blackbirds, a grasshopper sparrow and a Savannah sparrow that perched on a fence post not far from us and belted out its song.

Savannah sparrow on a wooden fence post, tilting its head back and opening its beak wide to sing.
The Savannah sparrow, presumably one breeding at the greenway.

As we turned toward home, Jim suggested that we stop by the Old Mill Greenway in Pennington, which adjoins Rosedale Park. For several days, a female hooded merganser with a dozen chicks had been reported there in Stony Brook, which flows through the park.

We crossed the bridge that spans the brook and walked to the edge of the water on the far side without spotting the mergansers. On the way back over the bridge, Jim suddenly stopped and said he’d found them — on a small island of dirt poking up from the brook.

Most of the babies were asleep but started stirring after a few minutes. Then plop, plop, plop, they scooted into the brook. A great blue heron was stalking nearby, and as it approached the mergansers, Mama led them back to the little island.

Mother hooded merganser and her 12 chicks float in the brook.
Off they go, with Mama Merganser on the left. The lead chick at top has just started diving.

We had two other surprises. First was a muskrat that appeared to be preening itself on the edge of the brook.

Muskrate standing in the muddy bank along the brook.
Muskrat at the water’s edge.

The other surprise came as we walked back to my car. Low in the grass under the trees lining the brook we saw a flash of yellow. It turned out to be a gorgeous female orchard oriole. She flitted about, mostly obscured in the grass and low-hanging tree leaves. She popped out for a few moments, long enough for me to leave you with this shot of her. Not a bad way to end of the month of May! 🦅

Female orchard oriole -- yellow head, lower body and tail -- with white-streaked black wings and a gray patch partway down her back.
Ms. Orchard. We also heard a Baltimore oriole, maybe two.

A blue grosbeak, full frame

I have no data to prove it, but when it comes to getting photos of the most colorful birds on my outings, I usually hear them before I see them. That’s true for cardinals, blue jays, Northern yellow warblers, indigo buntings, and blue grosbeaks.

At the Pole Farm this morning, I heard several indigo buntings plus a number of prairie warblers, none of which I was able to spot, let alone photograph. But I got lucky with the handsome blue grosbeak topping this post. I found him while walking up the central trail from the Cold Soil Road parking lot, in the fields where I often hear them singing.

For once, however, I spotted the grosbeak without it making a sound. It was perhaps 15 yards to the left of me, at eye level, perched on a slender tree limb with leaves surrounding it and green grasses beyond. To my wonder, it sat still for a time, allowing me quietly to back into position to get as clear a shot as possible.

I crop most of my bird photos, putting the emphasis on the bird. It’s rare for me to post a full-frame shot, as I did with this one today. The blue bird with the rusty wing bars was nicely situated amid the greenery. So I stuck with the in situ composition I saw through the viewfinder. 🦅

Which way to go? Follow the rare bird

A week had passed since I last went birding, and I was determined to get out before work this morning. But which way to go? At first I thought I’d go to my go-to place, the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. But birders had spotted a common gallinule — rare in these parts — the past few days at the Dyson Tract along the Delaware and Raritan Canal.

As I backed my car out of the driveway, I decided: let’s go for the gallinule! It was a good choice.

I peered into the swamp and the pond at the Dyson Tract, looking for any trace of the gallinule, a bird that rarely appears in Mercer County, New Jersey. As I was on my way back toward my car, I met up with another birder coming up the trail. He goes by Anonymous on e-Bird, and I will honor his choice by not revealing his name here.

Anonymous was looking for the gallinule, too, and when we parted ways we each agreed to holler to one another if one of us spotted it. A short while later, I was nearly back to my car when he caught up with me to say he’d spotted the bird and showed me a clear photo of it wading in the swamp.

Common gallinule, turned away from the camera, wades along a fallen log in a swamp.
We had to thread the needle through branches to capture the bird on camera.

Another birder who arrived joined us as we quick-stepped up the central trail to a break in the trees lining the edge of the swamp. After a few minutes, Anonymous spotted the bird again, and we all trained our binoculars and cameras on the bird.

Shooting was tricky. The bird was moving around, and many tree branches obscured the view. Eventually, we all got photos of the gallinule and savored that.

That was the first gallinule I’ve seen in New Jersey. I had logged one a few years ago in a wildlife sanctuary in Florida, but I didn’t get it on camera.

Today, I was grateful for Anonymous sharing his find. I tried paying it back by alerting our GroupMe birding group to the bird’s continued presence and added a description of where we’d spotted it. 🦅

A few photos to brighten a wet weekend

We’re in a stretch of rainy days, and I’ve also been busy with commitments on the Princeton campus. My birding has thus been limited, and I decided it was time to post a few recent photos previously unpublished.

I devoted my previous post to the prothonotary warbler I’d seen at the Dyson Tract. That morning visit brought me several other birds, as that plot of land along the Delaware and Raritan Canal usually does.

Great blue herons are often a sure bet to find, and I watched the one in the photo topping this post preening on a tree snag. The bird was near the edge of the swamp, a bit above my head. I got a good look at its legs and feet.

Great blue heron standing tall and looking to its right on a bare tree branch.

The Dyson Tract is a great place to spot bald eagles, and I saw one across the swamp when I arrived. I got a better look at it — I assume it was the same bird — as I walked up the central path in the park.

Mature bald eagle sits on the branch of a bare tree, its beak slightly open.
Bald eagle.

I heard the squawk of a green heron. A short while later, with help from another birder, I spotted it in the swamp.

Green heron perched on a fallen log in the swamp. The bird's legs and feet are yellow, as are its eyes.
Green heron strutting along a fallen log.

The herons are likely loving the rain we’re getting today. For many months, the swamp had nearly dried up. It’s good to see the water level restored, and I bet it will be even higher when I go back at some point next week. 🦅

Spotting the prothonotary warbler and its nest

Each of the last few years, prothonotary warblers have shown up during Spring migration at the Dyson Tract along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. It took me a few visits, but today I struck gold, so to speak.

As I arrived at the parking lot, I turned on the Merlin app and hoped it would hear the golden yellow bird with the grayish wings, black eyes and beak. As I walked up the canal towpath, Merlin signaled one nearby. I neither heard nor saw it.

I continued my walk and recorded several species, including a first-of-the-year green heron. I turned back toward my car and turned on Merlin, which quickly picked up another prothonotary warbler. Again, I didn’t hear or see it, but I decided to stay a while in hope that it would show itself.

A young woman birder arrived, also looking for the prothonotary warbler. With our backs to the canal, we peered into the swamp. A Northern yellow warbler flew by and we followed it to the trees lining the canal bank.

Then it happened — a prothonotary warbler winged its way past us and briefly settled in a tree on the bank. I was able to get a couple of grab shots, including the one topping this post, before the bird flew off.

We turned our attention back to the swamp, and a minute or two later we spotted the bird land on the top of a snapped-in-half bare tree. The bird was visiting its nest in a cavity atop the snag.

A snag tree with a cavity at its top stands next to a taller snag to the right.
The snag at left shows the nest cavity at top.

The bird made a few dashes to and fro before flying off. I wasn’t able to get any further shots of it.

While I would have preferred a sharper photo, seeing the bird was reward enough. Watching it zip back and forth from its nesting cavity was an added thrill. 🦅

Warbler weekend has been a blast

Spring migration probably reached its peak this weekend, and I spent a good deal of time in the field to experience it. The highlight was Saturday, when my friend Jim and I went to the Ted Stiles Preserve on Baldpate Mountain, hard by the Delaware River at Titusville, New Jersey.

Although I’d hiked Baldpate a couple of times, I’d never gone birding there. It seems unconscionable in retrospect, as I logged 42 species in two sections of the park.

Our first stop was at the Fiddlers Creek entrance off HIghway 29, which runs along the Delaware. With the windows down, we drove uphill listening for birds until we parked near the summit at a turnout along a stone wall that affords a great view of the treetops that warblers fancy.

We heard many but saw few warblers, and not getting a shot at a chestnut-sided warbler was particularly disappointing for me. Oddly, the only photos I took of any value were not of a bird but the Nessus sphinx, a hummingbird-like moth that flitted among the flower blossoms between the parked cars and the stone wall.

The Nessus sphinx moth gets set to land on a lavender colored flowering plant.
I’d never heard of or noticed the Nessus sphinx moth before Saturday morning.

Our next stop was to drive back down to Highway 29 and head up Pleasant Valley Road, bound for another entrance to the Stiles preserve. Birders we had chatted with on our first stop recommended that we walk up the trail that follows the power lines cutting through the park, and we found a bonanza of birds.

We were hoping for a golden-winged warbler but didn’t find any. Instead, we were treated to several singing rose-breasted grosbeaks, cheeping ovenbirds, a veery or two and several indigo buntings.

Blue-winged warbler raises its head in song. The bird is mostly yellow, with a bluish-gray wing showing and indistinct white wingbars.
Blue-winged warbler.

At the advice of a passing birder, we veered off onto a side trail and soon spotted a bay-breasted warbler in the trees above us. I managed only a few fuzzy shots of its bottom.

On the way back down the trail, a cooperative indigo bunting gave us several good looks.

An indigo bunting opens its beak in song as the bird perches on a light-colored tree branch.
The cooperative indigo bunting, who sang for us at a couple of locations.

When we got back to the parking lot, Jim suggested we walk toward the gate on Pleasant Valley Road, where we’d seen a few birders as we arrived. It was a good move.

We were awarded with views of several cedar waxwings, a scarlet tanager, a Nashville warbler and a black-throated blue warbler, which tops this post. Merlin hit on a Wilson’s warbler, but I neither saw nor heard what would have been a lifer. I didn’t record it — that’s one I want to see!

I started today at the Dyson Tract, hoping to spot or at least hear the pair of prothonotary warblers that have set up housekeeping in the tree-studded swamp. I had no luck with them, but I got a common grackle with an insect in its beak on a tree overhanging the pond off the trail.

Against a backdrop of green leaves, a common grackle perches on a bare tree branch while crunching an insect in its beak.
Common grackle, with breakfast snack in its beak.

I then headed to the Pole Farm, where I managed a nice closeup of a common yellowthroat and a long shot that cropped well of a singing Eastern meadowlark.

Common yellowthroat closeup of the upper half of the bird perched behind a few narrow tree branches.
Mr. Yellowthroat up close.
Meadowlark at the Pole Farm

After doing some planting in our garden beds, I had a few errands to run and made a stop at Colonial Lake to see if anything interesting might appear. I watched an osprey soar overhead as I got out of my car. It came back a minute later and dove to get a small fish. I only got focus on the bird once it hit the water.

All in all, it was a darn fine weekend of birding. I got nearly my fill of warblers and got to visit several spots. I’ll definitely return to the Stiles preserve, and often. 🦅

An osprey flies above greenish-looking water with a small fish clutched in its talons.
The osprey flies off with dinner.

The eternal beauty of the Northern cardinal

No birding for me today, as I took the day off to head to New York City to enjoy my grandson’s cello recital. Afterward, my son Liam and I walked from the little guy’s school through Central Park to return to their Midtown apartment.

The usual overwhelming assortment of pigeons was on full display as we walked through the park, but I didn’t bother to file an e-Bird report. I did, however, contemplate the contrast between those mostly drab urban avians with the vibrant red Northern cardinal I photographed the day before.

I was hoping for warbler karma at the Pole Farm’s AT&T Building One arches, but it was not to be. There was, however, a male cardinal singing its virtuoso song in a tree behind me.

I swung my camera its way for some mediocre shots. A man walking his dog came by, and the cardinal moved to a different spot among the trees. It offered a wonderful green backdrop for the crimson bird, and I share the open-beak image at the top of this post as proof. 🦅

What a day to forget my binoculars!

When I got to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm this morning, I realized that I’d left my binoculars at home. Oops. It wasn’t worth the drive to fetch them, so I set out on the trails with only my camera.

In the end, it was a minor inconvenience on what turned out to be a 35-species day. I logged many of them by ear, which wasn’t hard to do with ovenbirds, common yellowthroats and wood thrushes filling the woods and fields with melodies.

On the backside of my three-mile ramble, I found my birding friend Laura looking up into the “warbler wall” of trees at the AT&T Building One site. We hadn’t seen each other in months, and I was pleased to hear her tell me that the trees were brimming with birds.

The sun was shining brightly, and Laura quickly pointed out the Nashville warbler calling. We never did see the bird but otherwise got an eyeful: black-and-white warbler, Norther parula, blue-gray gnatcatcher, plus a black-throated green warbler that we heard.

Black-and-white warbler perched and leaning downward in a tree.
Black-and-white warbler, one of my favorites.

At one point, I went to grab my binoculars, only to come up empty handed. I soon forgot about that when I spotted a yellow bird atop one of the trees and snapped a few frames.

I initially thought it was a prairie warbler, but Laura set me straight in viewing the bird on my camera screen. It was a Cape May warbler. Although I’ve heard and seen Cape May warblers before, I’d never gotten a photo. I was elated. One of the photos tops this post.

Earlier on the walk, I’d finally spotted a rose-breasted grosbeak after hearing their beautiful song on several outings the past couple of weeks. I also spotted a scarlet tanager but missed the brief photo op.

I have since put my binoculars back in the Volkswagen and hope for more sunshine and warblers tomorrow. 🦅

Rose-breasted grosbeak perched o a high tree branch. The bird has a brilliant red chest splotch on a white body with a black head and ivoy beak.
R

Rose-breasted grosbeak.

A three-lifer day in the Pine Barrens

My buddy Jim and I drove through the fog down to the Michael Huber Prairie Warbler Reserve in the Pine Barrens this morning. Although we did spot a few prairie warblers, they weren’t the day’s highlight.

Jim has been to the Huber reserve many times, but this was my first visit to the sprawling stretch of pines at Vincentown, New Jersey, roughly 25 miles both south of Trenton and east of Philadelphia.

Hard-packed sand path through the trees under slightly foggy conditions.
The main trail we followed.

The reserve has multiple hard-packed sand trails through the tall pines. We started hearing birds the moment we stepped out of the car. I was keen to see a black-and-white warbler — a bird that has surprisingly eluded me over the last year — and hoped to catch a hooded warbler, which would be a lifer.

As the fog lifted and the sun came out, we saw more and more birds, starting with white-eyed vireos that popped in and out of tree branches just off the trail. We heard and finally saw black-and-white warblers, plus a blue-winged warbler.

White-eyed vireo sits on a tree bfranch. The bird has a yellowish head and body with olive wings and two white wingbars. A white circle surrounds it eye.
One of the white-eyed vireos.

Other birders have been reporting prothonotary warblers nesting at a bridge over a creek, and Jim said the spot is a great place to stand and wait for birds to appear.

He was right. As we approached the red gate on one side of the small bridge, I got a partial look at a hooded warbler through the branches. Jim and I spent quite a bit of time on and near the bridge, hearing an Acadian flycatcher, seeing a phoebe and more white-eyed vireos. To our great surprise, a barred owl — a first for me — started calling from the woods. We didn’t find it, but I was pleased to add it to my life list.

We never saw a prothonotary warbler, but Jim pointed out an egg nestled in a wood post on the bridge.

Prothonotary warbler egg in a wood post, which is studded with screws.

A hooded warbler eventually came by into trees just off the bridge, and I was able to get the bird firmly in focus. With its black cowl and vivid yellow body, it is truly a beautiful bird. I’ve made it the main image for this post.

No doubt excited by the hooded warbler, I accidentally closed file on my e-Bird checklist. I started a second one for our return to the car, and we heard more birds on the way: pine warblers, a couple of scarlet tanagers and more ovenbirds than you can shake a stick at.

Our last thrill came as we approached the turnout where our car was parked at the trailhead. I spotted a bird ahead on a branch at eye level and pulled up my binoculars. Female goldfich? No! A birder who had just arrived and was a few yards ahead of us had her bins on the bird and cried out, “Yellow-throated vireo!”

There were two of the vireos, it turned out. I had trouble focusing on them as they hopped to and fro among the dark pines. But one flew almost directly overhead, and I was able to get a few sharp shots of it munching on a bug.

Yellow-throated vireo shot from underneath. It has a winged bug in its beak. The bird has a yellow throat and a white lower body, with olive wings and an olive head with a yellow line above the eye.
Yellow-throated vireo munching on a bug.

Jim and I had figured on having a good day at the Huber reserve, and we were not disappointed. I look forward to returning. 🦅

Things are looking up in birding

With migration underway, we birders spend a lot of time looking up to spot warblers high up in trees. On two outings this week, I’ve seen few warblers but have spent a lot of time craning my neck.

I looked up at the Pole Farm on Wednesday to see a red-winged blackbird chasing a red-tailed hawk over the fields. I doubt the blackbird caught up to the hawk, but the former seemed to be doing a good job at moving the hawk along, as the top photo attests.

I was only a few minutes into my walk that morning when I spotted an orchard oriole in a tree not far from the parking lot. It flew off before I could raise my camera, but I got a second chance an hour later as I returned to my car. The oriole was in another tree, stubbornly staying behind a few branches between us. For a second, it poked its head out and I was able to catch a shot.

An orchard oriole perches in a tree, its black head peeking out from beyond a limb and part of its orange body obscured by the limb on which it was perched.
The best I could get of the orchard oriole.

The next morning at the Dyson Tract, I had better light in which to shoot. I hoped I’d be able to spot or at least hear a prothonotary warbler that had been reported the day before. I had no luck on that, but plenty of other birds were about.

I had trouble focusing on a yellow warbler, but I was able to catch a Northern house wren belting out its song from high up in a tree along the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath.

Northern house wren perched on a tree branch opens its beak wide to sing.
Big song from the little wren.

As I walked up the trail perpendicular to the towpath, I heard a Canada goose squawking loudly. It sounded as if the big bird was directly overhead and, sure enough, it was. The goose was about 30 feet above me on a bare tree trunk. I’ve taken lots of shots of geese flying above me, but never of one above me but staying put.

Close-up of Canada goose honking from the top of a tree, shwoing the goose from the neck up. Its beak is wide open with a string of what appears to be saliva stretching from the tips of the beak.
The Canada goose raising a ruckus from a treetop and drooling a bit, apparently.

Not long after that encounter, I spotted a red-shouldered hawk flying onto the top of a tree with a bare trunk. The hawk let out several cries, although it went quiet every time I pointed the camera its way.

Red shouldered hawk sitting atop a tree, its yellow talons clinging to the wood. The bird looks slightly downward to its right.
Red-shouldered hawk in a quiet moment.

Migration will be hitting its peak over the next few days, and I intend to spend a chunk of time outdoors looking for warblers. Wish me luck! 🦅