The classic Dr. Seuss book “Go, Dog. Go!” ends [spoiler alert] with a pack of dogs climbing a ladder to the top of a big tree for a big dog party. My birding buddy Lee and I experienced the avian equivalent today at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.
We pulled into the parking lot one after another and walked up the central path. Just past the point where the trail curves to the right, Lee spotted two birds perched in the grasses to our left.
They were bobolinks, and we sidled our way along the trail to find spots through the grasses where we had a clear shot at the birds. More bobolinks emerged, giving us lots of targets. While some of the birds flew off, others lingered.
Bobolink perching on grass stalks. The light was warm.
I entered a rough count of 12 in e-Bird, but there probably were more. We spent about 10 minutes snapping away before heading up the trail. We saw other birds, but it turned out I only shot the bobolinks. I have no complaints. 🦅
We’ve had a delightful run of sunny days of late. I’ve donned a jacket a few times on my morning walks because the post-dawn temperatures have dipped into the low 60s and even the 50s.
This morning dawned gloriously, and I got out to the Pole Farm hoping to photograph some of the warblers that have been trickling in. I did see male and female redstarts obscured by branches high up in a tree, but no other warblers revealed themselves.
Thanks to the warm rays of the sun, this was a day for quality, not quantity, in photos.
Topping this post is a Northern cardinal, still magnificent even if he’s missing a few feathers. I spotted him in a tree at the former AT&T Building One site. There’s a parfait of light, shadow and color in that shot. Through the camera viewfinder I spotted the bird plucking at what appears to be a rolled leaf. I figured I’d likely land a nice shot. I’m pleased with the result.
As I headed back toward my car, I crossed paths with my birding buddy Jim. He spotted the redstarts, and as we were chatting I noticed a field sparrow tucked into some of the plants just off the trail. I squeezed off a few frames, all of them with the bird’s beak closed except the one below. Again, light and shadow highlighted the bird’s features.
It’s rewarding to get these images, and I’m happy to share them. 🦅
This field sparrow was maybe 15 feet from me, perched long enough for me to take several shots.
The sweet “pee-uh-wee!” call of the Eastern wood pewee has been sounding repeatedly in my part of New Jersey this Labor Day weekend. I heard several again this morning at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm and at the Dyson Tract along the Delaware and Raritan Canal.
More often than not, I log my e-Bird pewee reports based on hearing them rather than seeing them. But they’ve been out in the open this weekend, and I caught a couple of shots of one of them in profile, high up in a tree at the Pole Farm.
The more pewees I encounter, the more frustrated I grow at not having seen their flycatcher cousin, the Eastern phoebe, since April last year.
That’s why when I wrapped up my walk at the Pole Farm, I drove over to the Dyson Tract, where I’ve often seen phoebes on the canal bank near the bridge that crosses the canal. Again today, no phoebes were found.
Only a few weeks ago, the swamp just off the canal had plenty of water to attract great egrets and little blue herons. Now, the swamp has dried up. Where there almost always is a layer of water deep enough to attract ducks, today there’s only green vegetation studded by the usual trees and stumps.
With the sun fully out and the temperature a cool 51 degrees, I headed to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm this morning for my first home outing since returning from Maine.
Bobolink
I had checked Birdcast to find that warblers are returning to Mercer County on their fall migration, and I hoped I’d chance upon a few. I stretched my neck muscles, anticipating some upward glances with my binoculars and, if lucky, my camera.
Walking the central path, I spotted a bobolink framed by grasses and heard one more farther up. Reaching the woods, I was ready for warblers.
As I turned toward the AT&T Building One site, I noticed several birders training their binoculars into the trees to the left, an area I call the “warbler wall.” Most springs and falls, that stretch of trees has been a magnet for northbound and southbound travelers.
Birders facing the “warbler wall.” The AT&T Building One red arches are to the right, just out of the frame.
One of the birders had spotted a Canada warbler, and with a laser pointer she circled the leaves where she believed it was visiting. Some minutes later, she announced it was at the bottom of that tree, and I was able to watch the bird fly off.
We spent about 20 minutes watching the activity in the trees, and there was plenty. At least one black-throated green warbler was zipping about, as were blue-gray gnatcatchers, Eastern pewees, a ruby-throated hummingbird and an American redstart. A Carolina chickadee came by, and a Northern flicker and hairy and downy woodpeckers put in appearances.
I didn’t realize one of the birds I shot was the redstart, a female as I would learn at home when looking at my photos.
I didn’t realize what I was shooting was a redstart. I’m glad to have caught her in flight.
While most of the birders moved on, I hung back with one of them and another walked in to join us. We had a nice chat about birding hotspots in New Jersey and Delaware. Suddenly, one of them spotted a red bird on a tree branch. His first thought was Northern cardinal but then blurted out, “scarlet tanager!”
Highlighted by the sun, the bird was a male with dark black wings and scarlet body. But there was a patch of yellow on its flank, signaling the change to winter plumage had begun.
It’s good to be home, and I hope all the southbound travelers make it home, too. 🦅
My wife and I headed to New England for a few days, with a stop in the Berkshires of Massachusetts on our way to Bar Harbor. On the 1,500-mile roundtrip, I didn’t have a lot of time for birding. But at Acadia National Park, we had some lovely close encounters with ruby-throated hummingbirds, and I added a lifer that had eluded me for years.
Acadia National Park, which spreads over nearly 50,000 acres on Mount Desert Island, is a place of wonder and one I’ve always wanted to visit. We spent the better part of one day there. The drive under the magnificent canopy of trees on the Park Loop road was delightful, and the views down to the shore studded with massive boulders were spectacular.
The highlight at the park came at the Wild Gardens of Acadia at the Sieur de Monts nature center. The garden has trails sluicing through all sorts of native plants, and we marveled at the variety. When we reached a section with plentiful cardinal flowers, my wife spotted a hummingbird on a tree branch just above me. The bird zipped off before I could swing my camera up, but we figured with all the cardinal flowers nearby, it would come back.
It did, flying in with two others. One of them spent a couple of minutes probing the blossoms on one section of the cardinal flowers, and I had plenty of time to catch some nice shots. A couple of the photos, like the one topping this post, show drops of nectar in the air after the hummer plucked it from a blossom. There’s also a droplet on the lower portion of the bird’s beak.
Then came a surprise. “What’s that bird behind those leaves?” my wife asked, pointing into some ferns. I strained to see what she was seeing through the green leaves, but then I saw it — an American woodcock was preening itself just off the trail about 10 feet from me.
The woodcock plays peekaboo with me from amid the leaves. This shot shows only the back end of its long beak.
A park employee soon came by and told us the woodcock had been hanging around the garden for a few days. I was elated to see the woodcock, as it was a long-awaited lifer for me. I had my 150-600 mm zoom on my camera, and my shot selection was limited. I got peekaboo looks at the bird and I’m happy with my photos.
The only other birding I got to do in Maine was at Hadley Point, near our motel a couple of miles up from Bar Harbor on Highway 3. The tide was out when I arrived around 7 a.m., and all I was able to spot were some herring gulls, double-crested cormorants, a great black-backed gull and a great blue heron. American goldfinches were chirping from the trees on the edge of the beach.
An American herring gull stands on ground that was accessible once the tide went out.
All in all, the visit to Maine was thoroughly enjoyable. I want to go back and explore more of the coast and also get inland a bit. If and when I go back to Acadia, I’ll aim to do it off-season. On the day of our visit, Aug. 26, the parking lots and roadside parking spots were jammed to near full. We left the park with much unseen, and that beckons us back. 🦅
While I dearly love the parks and trails I regularly traverse, I am always on the lookout for something new. By fiddling with the explore function in e-Bird yesterday, I clicked a map pin on a nearby trail I never knew existed.
It’s the Dinky Line Trail, a short path near the Princeton Junction train station. That’s where riders on the Northeast corridor transfer to catch the “Dinky,” the two-car, short-line train to the Princeton University campus and the municipality of Princeton.
I had a bit of trouble finding the trailhead, which is behind a couple of glass box office buildings off Alexander Road in West Windsor, roughly across from the Princeton Federal Credit Union. I parked nearby in another lot and entered the trail after half-circling a pond behind another office building closer to the train station.
I followed a narrow path through some woods that was major catbird territory. Eventually I came to a wooden footbridge that revealed a lush marsh studded with reeds. I spotted a great blue heron perching not far away.
The great blue heron perching in the middle of the marsh.
After stopping on the bridge for a while, I continued through the woods and a few minutes later emerged onto a paved path winding its way at the back of a corporate park parking lot. The train line was to the right, up a wooded embankment. I walked maybe a quarter of a mile before deciding to turn back. Few birds were about, and I headed to my car.
My initial thought was the trip was a bust. As short as it was, however, the trail has its charms, including wildflowers. For those with little kids, the trail makes for a great introduction to the natural world. The view from the footbridge was worth the trip, providing a gem of a view of the marsh.
It turned out that I aimed my camera at only one bird today, and it happened early in my walk at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. This Cooper’s hawk surprised me when I spotted it roughly 100 feet ahead of me.
The sky was overcast and the sun was muted, but I was able to note the bird’s telltale banded tail. I took a few shots, hoping that I caught a time when the bird — its back to me — turned its head.
I was fortunate to catch moments when it looked side to side. I chanced a few steps to get closer, and the bird few up the trail, eventually to be spooked by a woman coming toward it from the opposite direction.
While red-tailed hawks are the most common at the Pole Farm and in the surrounding area, Cooper’s hawks also appear somewhat regularly. I’ve taken shots of them perched in tree branches. This was the first time I spotted one on the ground and was able to approach fairly close. I’m happy with the results. 🦅
The hawk looks back toward me as I snap the shutter of my camera.
We are in the “dog days” of summer. The dog star, Sirius, dips low on the horizon, and our canine companions, sapped by the heat, are low on energy.
For birders, this time of year brings a lull in species sightings. The migrant warblers are in their northern breeding grounds, many weeks off from when southerly instincts stir their souls.
In my part of the world, even the visitors remaining are hard to find. I have not heard a common yellowthroat calling for a week or more, although I did briefly spot two of them this morning at the Pole Farm.
While I regularly heard and spotted indigo buntings a month ago, I’ve been hearing but not seeing them on almost every outing. This morning, I’d heard at least four of them at the Pole Farm before finally spotting one high up in a tree where the woods meet the main meadows. I have paid the bunting the honor of placing the one fair photo I got of it atop this post.
On the trail back to my car, I heard three blue grosbeaks singing. But they refused to show themselves. While other birding friends have gotten photos, I’ve been shut out to the point that I wonder if the grosbeaks are taunting me.
A bit later in the morning, I headed to a driving range in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, to tune up for the nine holes of golf I’m scheduled to play at mid-week. On the way, I took the “Trenton Makes” bridge to make a birding stop at the Morrisville levee along the Delaware River.
I’d been to the levee a couple of times before, never fully comfortable walking along the path atop it. I am, frankly, terrified of heights. The levee slants steeply, and I want no part of tumbling down whatever length it is to the river that George Washington and his troops famously crossed nearby in December 1776.
Standing on the grassy side of the levee toward the town, I swept the river with my binoculars and saw a huge number of gulls sitting on rocks in the water. I heard laughing gulls and took a few photos with my telephoto lens fully extended.
A ring-billed gull flies over the Delaware River, with at least one laughing gull on a rock below.
I stayed on the levee about 15 minutes before heading down a steep cement stairway to the street below and walking back to my car. Rather than going to the driving range in Morrisville, I headed back over the river and made my way to the driving range closer to home — no heights involved. I leave that to the indigo buntings. 🦅
Photography: n. from the Greek, writing with light. I majored in the classics in college, and I’m familiar with the roots of many common words in the English language.
Anyone who is halfway serious about photography knows that good light makes for good photos. Although it wasn’t quite the “golden hour” before sunset when I stopped at the Reed Bryan Farm early this evening, the light was warm and promising for photos.
I was thinking about that as I walked the trails, lamenting that few birds were out in the 5 o’clock hour. About two dozen barn swallows were swarming overhead, doing touch-and-go’s from the antenna strands on the last remaining pole in the Pole Farm complex. Half as many purple martins gathered in nearby trees, but none of those birds are particularly photogenic, especially when high above me.
I did have one decent subject to shoot. Eureka! A willow flycatcher was perched regally atop a slender branch amid the grasses off the main trail. Until I brought the images up on screen at home, I didn’t realize how magnificent the bird looked in the early evening light.
The top photo cropped.
Because the light was ideal, the green grasses behind the bird formed a lush background, enhancing the photo.
The bird emitted no buzzy call to alert me to its presence, and I’m glad I was able to spot it. Even better, I captured a portrait that I’m happy to share with my readers, to whom I wish good lighting and good writing. 🦅
Traffic on my drive home from work was remarkably light today, so I grabbed my camera and went to the Pole Farm for a pre-dinner stroll. Under a cloudy sky, few birds were flying, and I was mainly birding by ear.
Making a clockwise loop, I was well down the paved Lawrence-Hopewell Trail when I spotted a black-and-white form atop a green stalk off to my left. A quick check through the binoculars revealed an Eastern kingbird and, for once, it didn’t fly off.
For whatever reason, I always associate kingbirds with the king, Elvis Presley, and I was happy to photograph this bird, even while knowing it would be tough to pull out detail from his black feathers in less-than-ideal light.
I was surprised that even as I moved forward to seek new angles, the bird didn’t seem to notice me and stayed put. Even a passing jogger didn’t spook it. After taking several shots, I moved on.
White-tailed deer stares me down from the grasses.
I spotted a white-tailed deer looking directly at me, and then another kingbird (or at least I assumed so) appeared perched atop a tree. It was trickier to shoot than the first kingbird, and it would be my last photo opportunity on the 45-minute route.
Had I not taken a single photo, the walk would have been worth the fresh air. Encountering a couple of Flying Elvi made the trip even better. 🦅
The Jersey Birder 