The ultimate American bird: The bald eagle

As with many things in my Cleveland upbringing, bald eagles were just another creature in decline during the 1960s and ’70s. As a teenager, I experienced a couple of ghastly fish kills while heading for a day at the beach on the shore of Lake Erie. Every time I’d look at the embarrassingly polluted Cuyahoga River, I knew I was more likely to see a fire erupt than see a fish.

Eagles, in other words, weren’t expected in the skies over sooty northeastern Ohio. I don’t believe I ever knowingly saw a bald eagle until the early 90s, and I had to go to Alaska to find them. On a business trip to Juneau, a colleague drove me to the edge of town, Mendenhall Glacier. There, soaring above the ice sheet, were an astonishing 27 bald eagles by my count.

I had only a pocket camera with me, and I don’t recall putting any eagle photos in my album. But I remember the day well.

Bald eagles, our national bird, have been making an encouraging comeback. I’m happy to report evidence of that. I saw one flying in the distance south of our first home after we moved back to New Jersey eight or nine years ago.

In the nearly six years we’ve lived in our current home, I’ve seen several eagles flying by, including one sailing over our next-door neighbors’ home while I was on a Zoom call from my COVID-year home office.

One morning as I was filling the bird bath, my neighbor asked if by chance the large bird he had seen on the golf course behind our homes could have been a bald eagle. “Could have been,” I said, and at that moment an eagle flew straight over my house and my head, and flew off into the distance toward Princeton.

I’ve not had the good fortune to have my camera at the ready when those close encounters came, here at home or out at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm where I spend a lot of my free time and have had a couple of flyovers.

Two bald eagles atop a cell tower, January 2021.

The first photo I managed to get was of a pair of bald eagles perched atop a cellphone tower along Business Route 1, just south of where it feeds traffic back into regular U.S. 1 in Lawrence Township. My wife spotted one of them and insisted we turn around (no small thing in New Jersey, the jughandle state!). It was worth the effort, even if my modest telephoto lens could only get a few distant shots.

Some weeks later at the end of March, I was fortunate to capture an eagle in flight at Colonial Lake, a bit south of the cell tower where I’d spotted the previous birds.

A bald eagle soars above Colonial Lake in Lawrence Township on March 31, 2021.

My best shot, so to speak, came last weekend, when I trudged through Abbott Marshlands, a conservation area that hugs the Delaware River near Trenton. I’d been out on the trails for about 90 minutes with only a few distant frames of ducks in my camera and I was nearly back to the parking lot when I spotted a big bird flapping its wings over the marsh. Figuring it was a bald eagle, I silently said “To heck with the binoculars” and raised my camera.

Here’s the best frame of the bald eagle from near the parking lot at Abbott Marshlands.

The bird was too quick for me to get a decent airborne shot. It landed high in a tree across the marsh. I got some fair distant shots but nothing special. I waited for 10 minutes or so, hoping for a closer look, before deciding to head home.

The park is on a turnoff from where Sewell Avenue dead-ends at a bluff overlooking the marsh. As I drove up out of the park, I stopped my car as I entered Sewell and got out.

My luck held: the eagle was still perched in the same spot, and now I had a closer view.

Here’s the best shot I got of the eagle, oddly enough from the end of Sewell Avenue and not in the Abbott Marshalands just below me.

I’m still in the hunt for better eagle photos, and I should point out that the eagles mentioned in this post so far were all mature birds with the dramatic white heads atop black bodies. I have spotted a few immature bald eagles near Mercer Lake at Mercer County Park, a great gathering spot for bald eagles during the winter. With my new longer lens, I’ll be heading back out there once the colder weather comes.

I’m thrilled that bald eagles are no longer considered endangered or threatened, but I still note that their habitat is forever under assault by the relentless encroachment of human development. May they continue to thrive here in my little corner of the Garden State, up and down the Delaware River Valley, and from sea to shining sea.

Hope for the future: An immature bald eagle soars over Mercer Lake.

Giving Thanks for a New Bird: The American Tree Sparrow

The only thing that can top the thrill of spotting a new bird for your life list is knowing that you have a nice image of that bird saved on your camera.

I was on the way back to my car about 8:30 this morning along one of my regular routes at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm when I spotted a small bird on the ground just ahead of me. The bird quickly popped into a small tree beside the path, and I walked gingerly ahead to get the sun behind my back. When I turned around, I spotted it — a sparrow for sure — in the middle of the tree.

This was my first shot of the American tree sparrow, which nicely shows of its bi-colored beak.

My usual procedure is bring up the binoculars first to get the best chance at identifying the bird, then hope it sticks around long enough for me to get a photo or two. This time, however, I raised my camera right away and aimed. The bird was nestled in branches, giving my camera’s auto-focus fits but I was virtually certain I was seeing an American tree sparrow.

I snapped one photo, then another, reasonably confident at least one of them would be clear and sharp. I then switched over to manual focus and fumbled for a few seconds before switching back to auto, when the bird flew away.

I brought up that last photo on the screen on the back of my camera, and there it was, fully confirmed: an American tree sparrow, with its rufous cap and unusual bi-colored beak.

I had been for a walk Thanksgiving morning on the Reed Bryan farm side of Mercer Meadows, where another birder kindly pointed out a section of brush where American tree sparrows were cavorting along with some song sparrows. I’m certain I observed at least one of the tree sparrows (my first knowing sighting), but on my camera I only captured the song sparrows.

Today’s tree sparrow sighting was extra special, because I was a bit doubtful about the one Thursday. But there was no doubt about today’s tree sparrow.

This was the second shot, which is all I would get. My attempt to switch to manual focus only frustrated me. But I’m very happy with both frames I did get.

A refuge near (and from) the Motor City

Since my daughter and her family moved to Michigan, during the handful of drives I’ve taken up Interstate 75 to visit I spotted with curiosity the signs for the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge. Each time I drove past, I made a mental note to arrange to stop the next chance I’d get.

I got that chance a few weeks back on a trip that would also take me to Indiana. The refuge is just south of the city of Detroit, at the “wrist” of the “mitten” that is lower Michigan. I stopped at the refuge on a crisp fall day, the first break on the long drive back to New Jersey.

I arrived at late morning and discovered that the large visitor center was closed because of COVID restrictions. No matter; I was more interested in being outside and grabbed a trail map.

A ring-billed gull soars above the Detroit River.

From the parking lot, I walked toward the fishing pier that juts into the river, which actually looks more like a large lake, as the refuge shoulders a wide spot on the river. Seagulls soared overhead, and I was only able to spot a few ducks and Canada geese floating in the distance near Humbug Island a short distance across the water.

Walking back toward the visitor center, I entered a wooded area with flat, easy trails. I can’t recall seeing any birds, although a buck with an impressive rack trekked cautiously through the brush nearby, evading my camera.

A great egret searches for fish in the Monguagon Delta.

I eventually reached the edge of the Monguagon Delta, where I was treated to the site of a couple of great egrets stalking out fish. Conscious of the ticking clock, I headed back toward the car to resume my drive home.

View of the Monguagon Delta, just off the Detroit River.

I only stayed at the refuge for 50 minutes, not nearly enough time to explore all its trails. I hope to get back at an earlier hour some day, when there should be more avian activity.

Although I was disappointed I didn’t see a greater number and variety of birds, I am impressed that Detroit has such a great preserve so close by, not unlike the Heinz wildlife refuge hard by Philadelphia. It’s great to know that on the edges of sprawling urban areas that have already claimed too much natural habitat from our animal neighbors, these refuges are thriving and waiting to be explored further.

My next challenge: to find a similar spot close to New York City. I have a few ideas….

Entrance to the refuge in Trenton, Michigan, accessible by a short drive off Interstate 75.

Man in the Limberlost: A side trip to Indiana

The “Jersey Birder” title of this site notwithstanding, I do venture out of the Garden State on occasion and sneak in a bit of birding as time allows. Last week, I drove to Michigan for some family matters that involved a jaunt to the northeast quadrant of Indiana.

I had done some online scouting from home but had little luck figuring out a hot spot near where I’d be staying until I actually got to Indiana. There, a Google search brought up the Indiana Birding Trail website, which has an interactive map that led me to the Limberlost Swamp Conservation Area only a few miles from where I was staying.

The name “Limberlost” immediately clicked in memory. From childhood, I knew about “A Girl of the Limberlost” by Gene Stratton-Porter. Although I’d never read the book, I may have seen a movie adaptation on TV, and Porter’s work was discussed during a class I took in graduate school.

The Limberlost Swamp was the setting for Porter’s “Girl of the Limberlost” and other novels, based in large measure on her experiences growing up and spending much of her life exploring the swamp. In the motel, I read up on Porter and found on Project Gutenberg the text of her first novel, “The Song of the Cardinal,” which is centered in the Limberlost Swamp.

A section of trail in the Loblolly Marsh Nature Preserve.

At that point, there was no question I would head to the Limberlost. I struck out the next morning to the nearest entry point, the Loblolly Marsh Nature Preserve. I arrived about 9:20 a.m. That was a bit late to observe peak morning bird activity, but how hard can it be to find a cardinal?

Harder than I expected.

Although I passed a marsh that had scores of Canada geese, most birds were shy that morning. Other than several Canada geese on the wing, in my roughly 1.5-mile round-trip stroll I recorded only two blue jays and a tufted titmouse, and I got one out-of-focus shot of it before it flew off. A sparrow dashed by but tucked into tall grasses before I could identify the variety.

I decided to move on and head to the town of Geneva and the Gene Stratton-Porter Historic Site, which proved to be an unexpected joy. The site includes the “cabin” home where Stratton-Porter, her husband and daughter lived for many years. I was even more fortunate to chance upon Jeanne the guide, who gave a few other visitors and me a delightful tour of the property and a thorough and fascinating account of Stratton-Porter, a remarkable author, naturalist and photographer whose life wrapped around the turn of the 20th century.

The Stratton-Porter cabin, its parlor with a desk that belonged to Stratton-Porter’s contemporary Indiana author Booth Tarkington, and another room, with the dining room at rear.

There’s plenty of information about her online, but I must mention that Stratton-Porter is an inspiration for all of us birders who take photographs. Stratton-Porter taught herself photography, including demanding darkroom work, a necessity when the publisher of her nature works asked for illustrations. Stratton-Porter was appalled that most bird photography of the time was pictures of dead birds posed before the camera. She wouldn’t stand for that, and she spent hour upon hour camped out in the swamp, getting close enough to take photos of birds in their natural settings. That’s an even greater accomplishment considering the difficulty of the glass plates and other clunky, heavy camera gear of the day, which she lugged into the foreboding swamp by horse-drawn carriage.

But what of my quest to find a cardinal?

Canada geese swim away from me in a marshy area of the Loblolly Nature Preserve near Geneva, Indiana, Nov. 5, 2021.

As I was leaving the Loblolly marsh, I stopped along the road to take the photo shown here of the Canada geese. I turned around to head north-northeast toward Geneva, and as I pulled up to a stop sign at the edge of the preserve, a streak of red gleaming in the sunshine shot left to right in front of me.

I’d found my cardinal.

Someday, I intend to return to the Limberlost and hope to hear his song of “good cheer.”

New lens, new perspective on birding photography

As my birding activity ramped up over the past two years, I became increasingly aware of the shortcomings of my camera equipment. I’d been using a refurbished Canon 75-300 mm lens, and it has served me well shooting out the windows at our backyard feeders and shooting in the field at birds at close range.

But as I watched other birders with cubit-length zooms lined up to capture images from long distances, I was increasingly consumed by lens envy.

A work colleague had purchased a Sigma 150-600 mm Contemporary zoom a couple of years back, and I set my sights on getting one of my own. We’re fortunate to still have a camera shop in my neighborhood, and several months ago I stopped by to see if a Canon mount for the big Sigma was in stock. It was, and I said I’d be saving up and would return.

A few weekends ago, I was with a cluster of birders at the Pole Farm and we were checking out a merlin on a treetop. The best I could muster was a wide, distant shot that wouldn’t be worth printing. I decided then that it was time to head back to the camera shop, credit card in hand.

The shop had one of the Sigmas, and as it was in the same spot as when I’d been in earlier. I suspect it was the same lens. The dealer quoted me a price that matched that offered by the big New York photo houses, and I said “I’ll take it.”

The lens is great. I’m not going to turn this post into a review, so I will only note that the Sigma has stabilization features that help me get sharp images while holding the camera and lens in my hands. After a few weeks, I’m still learning how best to use it.

The best image I’ve taken so far is that of the white-throated sparrow that I’ve included with this post. For that one, I had the lens mounted atop my monopod. The bird parked on the branch long enough for me to get off a handful of frames, and I’m thrilled with the result.

White-throated sparrow at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, Oct. 22, 2021.

Depending on conditions, I may or may not take the monopod (it has three collapsible tripod-like feet) into the field. As chance would have it, shooting hand-held I was able to get some nice images of a merlin perched even higher atop a tree than the one I shot previously with my shorter zoom.

I’ve been taking my upgraded kit into the field frequently, and that’s a good part of the reason why I have not posted in several weeks. More to come!

A merlin perches atop a tree at the Pole Farm, Oct. 22, 2021.

October Big Day: I meet local legends

Saturday was eBird’s October “Big Day” in which all birders, from the backyard feeder watchers to those with huge life lists, are encouraged to get out and count. I headed to my nearby hot spot, the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, about dawn and had a middling day as far as bird spotting.

But I got so much more out of the day.

I pulled into the parking lot at the same time as a couple who clearly were ready to bird. We traded notes on recent sightings (I was thrilled the day before to see my first black-throated blue warbler) as we headed onto the main trail. I waved farewell to strike out solo on the long, main path toward the woods and the old AT&T Building One site.

On the edge of the woods, I spotted a merlin on a treetop, and I was able to get a distant photo from my modest 75-300mm refurbished Canon lens.

The merlin, presumably the one who’s been hanging around the Pole Farm in recent days, perches atop a bare tree.

On into the woods I went, and there was a fair amount of activity in one corner of the Building One area. Amid the mewing catbirds and flitting sparrows, I spotted a small greenish bird and managed to snap a few photos.

But I wasn’t sure what it was. A female common yellowthroat? A vireo of some sort? Another warbler?

This little greenish bird turned out to be a ruby-crowned kinglet, and I assume it’s a female as it’s lacking the red crest.

I reversed course and headed back toward the parking lot, and as I emerged from the woods into the open fields I could see the birding couple down the way. They were patiently strolling and, I presumed, finding twice the birds that I was.

When I reached them, I said hello again and asked if they would help me identify that green bird. The man looked onto the screen of my Canon and said without hesitating, “ruby-crowned kinglet.”

I was thrilled — I had tentatively identified one last fall — and this was my first confirmed sighting. One thing led to another and I introduced myself as Dan, and he replied, “I’m Old Sam Peabody.”

Old Sam Peabody? I’ve seen his name repeatedly, and he’s No. 2 on e-Bird’s Mercer County, New Jersey, region. The lady with him? Blondcrested Warbler, and she’s No. 4 on the list.

Wow.

They are delightful people, and as with the best of birders I’ve met, willing to share what they know and help us up-and-comers.

Saturday held more adventure, and I’ll save that story for another post.

The kinglet takes off.

Hope is gone for the ivory-billed woodpecker

As I suspect most birders did, I read with sadness the news accounts late last week that the ivory-billed woodpecker was at last declared extinct. The New York Times story included video I had not previously seen of those magnificent creatures in Louisiana in 1935.

I can’t remember when I first learned about the ivory-billed woodpecker. It was either a story in the New Yorker about the (futile) search to find it in the disappearing woods of the American South, or it might have been in the book, “Hope Is the Thing With Feathers, A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds” by Christopher Cokinos.

What I do remember is that even while clinging to the hope that the New Yorker piece raised, I knew the “Lord God Bird” was doomed. But it was the Cokinos book — chronicling the last day in life of the last passenger pigeon, Martha, at the Cincinnati Zoo and other vanished species — that really made me grieve.

Flocks of passenger pigeons darkened the skies of this North American continent at one point, just as the buffalo dominated the Great Plains. But our American forbears shot and hunted them for sport, killing off the former and nearly wiping out the latter.

Cokinos relates the heartrending tales of multiple birds erased by the encroachment of us humans, we of the big brains arrogantly obliterating anything and anyone in our path to fulfill manifest destiny.

I was fortunate to tour the Cornell ornithology lab early in my days working at Princeton University. The lab’s collection of bird specimens is an incredibly rich resource. With the Cokinos book still fresh in mind, curiosity got the better of me and I asked if there were specimens of the ivory-billed woodpecker.

There were, and the scientist giving us the tour pulled out a drawer and picked up the lifeless body of one. My head told me to kneel in reverence, but all I could do was offer a meager “thank you” to our host.

As millions of birds relocate during the fall migration, I’m rooting for them all. May they avoid our skyscrapers and find new routes to our diminished wild lands as they make their way to their seasonal homes.

Heinz wildlife refuge, a special place for birds and birders

With jets taking off and landing next door at Philadelphia Airport, it’s hard to believe the abundance of wildlife at John Heinz National Wildlife. On countless treks to PHL in recent years, I’ve seen the signs for the refuge but was never able to explore it until this past weekend.

I arrived mid-morning Saturday at the refuge in Tinicum Township, Pennsylvania, adjacent to Philadelphia. The airport lies between the Delaware River and the refuge, on the eastern flyway.

A great blue heron stalks the Emergent Wetland, with the Big Boardwalk behind. Note at center top the double-decker viewing platform, which I couldn’t access because of trail work.

I spent most of my 90-minute visit on the Wetland Loop Trail and the Big Boardwalk Loop Trail, with some time in the Warbler Woods. One of the trails was blocked as a work crew was repairing what I assume was recent storm damage. I diverted onto the boardwalk across the Emergent Wetland, a big, lake-like area where I saw several great blue herons, a great egret and one delightfully noisy belted kingfisher.

The wide boardwalk that crosses the marsh is also great. It’s not merely a footpath. The boardwalk has cutout platforms that jut into the water, giving visitors room to look more closely at the turtles and birds without having to worry about impeding others walking by. Nicely illustrated signs show and tell visitors about the creatures they might see.

View over the Emergent Wetland, from one of the cutout platforms on the boardwalk.

I encountered two friendly, helpful birders who know the refuge well. One gave me some tips on navigating the paths, and the other turned out to be a special treat.

Early in my walk, I had spotted a small group of people in a clearing between two sections of woods. A tour, I thought. Later, after spotting a black-and-white warbler on the wetland trail, I veered off and headed back toward the park entrance through that same clearing. One young man was still there, peering intently into the woods on one side.

I asked him what he was looking for, and he told me that this particular area was a warbler hot spot in fall and spring.

Was it ever.

He rattled off a list of several birds he had spotted for the group he’d been guiding earlier. This was a jackpot for me, as he pointed out a beautiful veery perched on a tree and an American redstart, both additions to my life list. The guide also spotted a northern parula for me, only my second sighting.

The Heinz refuge is roughly 35 miles from my home, and I will be going back.

A great blue heron soars and lands in the Emergent Wetland; a black-and-white warbler explores a tree in the woods; the entrance to the visitor center, closed temporarily over COVID concerns.

The magnificent hummingbird

As the pandemic wore on last summer, I hung a hummingbird feeder from a portable metal stand outside the window where I set up my home office. The wind kept knocking the stand over. I managed to nick the stand with my lawn tractor one day, and to my great dismay the glass portion of the feeder shattered when it hit the ground.

I decided to try again this year, although I chose a much better place: a shepherd’s hook sunk into the ground near the kitchen window looking out toward our front yard.

It took a while for the hummingbirds to find the nectar I mixed from concentrate. When they showed up, they brought instant joy.

I spotted one out a back window last weekend and figured there was a good chance the bird would zip around to the front of the house. I grabbed my camera and, heading out the door, spotted the bird hovering near the feeder. Alas, the screen door slammed shut behind me, scaring off the bird.

I parked on a bench on the porch for a short while, and soon the bird — a female ruby-throated hummingbird — returned. She lit on the opposite side of the feeder for a bit, then shifted to the feeding ports where I could see her. My first shots were out of focus, and she flew off.

Patience is not a virtue I have in abundance, but I decided to wait quietly in case she’d come back. A few minutes later, she did, and I got a few good shots. She even hovered for a few seconds near the porch, but I wasn’t fast enough to catch her with my camera. She came back two more times, and I grabbed a few more shots before heading in from the heat.

I hope to go out again soon, hoping (like the female?) to catch a male.

My bird identification skills are shaping up

When I was a kid, my dad showed me outlines of Japanese aircraft in cards and books that he’d been issued while stationed in the South Pacific during World War II. Recognizing the difference between a Japanese Zero and an American P-51 Mustang, he told me, could give you and your buddies a few precious seconds more to hunker down in a bunker and not get strafed.

There’s no comparison between taking cover in the jungles of New Guinea and strolling the suburban woods of New Jersey, of course, but those lessons on fighter and bomber silhouettes translate well to bird identification.

I’ve been ruminating on how clever our animal friends have been over the centuries in evolving natural camouflage, like the coats of squirrels that blend them into the bark on the trees they climb, affording them a bit of protection against predator hawks circling above.

Birds have the knack for concealment, too. I’ve been struck by how well they blend into the branches of the trees where they perch. I’ve been fooled many times by birds standing stock still on a limb, at which my eyes send a signal to my brain that says, “branch, don’t bother raising your binoculars.” Then the bird shakes its wings and flies off, leaving me to wonder at how blind I was.

The longer I’ve been birding, though, the more likely it is that the eye-to-brain messaging works the other way around. I think I see a bird in the tall grass and it turns out to be a cluster of leaves. Decaying plant matter, to my eyes at least, has an amazing ability to emulate the form of birds.

This morning, I was walking on the golf course adjacent to our lot and from about 50 yards out from a retention wall, I halted at what I thought might be a great blue heron. I often see them at the ponds at the course, but not today. The sinuous pattern I spotted was not the graceful neckline of a heron but merely an illusion presented by the gaps in the stone wall hugging the green.

Is it a bird or is it a plane? My tissue dispenser plays tricks on me.

The most absurd example of my eyes and brain trying to identify everything around me came yesterday as I approached a box of tissues. What kind of bird is that, I wondered as I looked at the tissue poking out of the top of the dispenser. Or does it look more like an airplane?

I laughed at myself for trying to map a bit of nature onto a Kleenex. But later I smiled because that little bit of foolishness told me that I’ve trained my brain to look for bird-like patterns all around me. I believe I’ve progressed to the point where at a glance I can tell the difference between a magpie and a Mitsubishi.

I will need to work harder, though, on identifying the wide varieties of flycatchers — or are they just branches poking through the leaves?