A day of discovery and a lifer, sort of

I made two visits to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm today, and it was full of surprises. On a longer than usual three-mile walk in the morning, I finally added a red-headed woodpecker to my e-Bird reports. It was a lifer. Or was it?

I’ve been hoping to spot a red-headed woodpecker since I began birding seriously the last few years. I am reasonably certain that I saw red-headed woodpeckers in my neighborhood growing up, but I’m also aware that what we called red-headed woodpeckers in suburban Cleveland may have been red-bellied woodpeckers.

The red-headed woodpecker (or were there two?) that I spotted this morning didn’t have a red head. It was gray, signifying a juvenile. But the black and white pattern under its wing — as clearly shown by the photo topping this post — told me it really was a red-headed woodpecker.

My first? Who knows. But it’s the first on my official life list, which now totals 202 in New Jersey and 237 worldwide.

As I was looking at the red-head, a red-bellied woodpecker, a downy woodpecker and a Northern flicker were in trees close by. Then a pileated woodpecker flew in, making it a woodpecker party. Only a hairy woodpecker was missing.

A pileated woodpecker looks at a spot on a tree, hoping to find a bug to eat.
Mr. Pileated takes a gander at the tree.

The redhead wasn’t the only surprise of the day. I caught a thrush in a tree as I was heading toward the northeast corner of the park, thinking it was either a wood thrush or a hermit thrush. It turned out to be a Swainson’s thrush, one I had not seen lately.

A Swainson's thrush extends its head while perched on a tree, wtih slender green branches behind it.
Swainson’s thrush, Note the eye ring.

I ran into my birding buddy Jim at some point, and he told me that the video he had posted on Facebook of some 30 common nighthawks he had seen at sunset yesterday were at the Pole Farm.

I went back about an hour before sunset and soon found Jim and another birder. The three of us walked up the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail and stopped short of the entrance to the central woods. We were in an ideal spot to see the nighthawks if they were to return,

While we were waiting, we watched a merlin harass an American kestrel and then spotted two Northern harriers, my first of the season. American crows and red-winged blackbirds flew overhead, but we never did see a nighthawk.

Such is birding: a few surprises and a disappointment, all in the span of 12 hours. 🦅

Finding beauty in common birds

With their plain-Jane garb of brownish gray and drab white, female house finches don’t draw the eye the way their male companions do with their deep red feathers.

When the female finches show up at our feeders, I glance at them, make a mental note of their number and hope something brighter will fly in to the circular perch.

Yet in the woods the other day, I spotted the female finch topping this post and snapped her photo. I didn’t think much of it at the time and moved on, hoping to find something brighter.

When I brought the photo up on screen at home, I was struck by the bird’s unexpected beauty. It seems I caught her at her best — a regal pose in gentle light, the slightly blurred green leaves behind her providing a soft, feminine backdrop.

The experience of viewing that photo reminds me to look intently at the birds and other critters that share our human habitat. At a glance, they may appear boringly ordinary. But upon closer, open-minded examination, each has its charms: delicate feathers, perhaps one askew, maybe a silvery beak clutching a small seed.

I also offer a photo of a Northern house wren, a bird that presents a subdued brown color scheme, nothing with pizzaz. And yet look at this sweet little one perched at an angle on the branch of a small tree.

Northern house wren at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm.

I find beauty in the variations in the coloring of the feathers of his or her breast, something I don’t notice when looking a wrens in the moment. The photo captures the nuances.

To provide a bit of color, I’m adding a photo of a blue jay I spotted at the Charles Rogers Preserve not long after I saw the house finch. Blue jays have striking looks, of course, especially when the sun lights up their blue coats.

A blue jay perches on a bristly branch, it's tail pointing toward the photographer.
Blue jay from the rear.

Most of the shots of blue jays I get are in profile or head-on, but this time I was behind the bird. On viewing the photo, I am struck by the near uniform rectangles on its tail feathers and the blue and white splotches on its primaries or wing tips.

I’ve seen thousands of blue jays over my lifetime, but how often do I look closely? Rarely. I’m glad I’ve discovered the joy of noticing the subtleties of these birds by looking at them more intently. It’s much easier to do so in viewing a photograph, but I’m committing myself to looking more intently at birds as they come into view. 🦅

Magnificent Sunday with a bald eagle

When several hours of rain finally lapsed Sunday afternoon, my wife suggested I head out with my camera. I had not expected to have an opportunity to do any birding, so I jumped at the chance — promising to be back soon to help get things in order for dinner guests.

Because of all the rain from the overnight storm, I headed to the Dyson Tract along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. I figured it was a good bet for birds at mid-afternoon and a good match for the hour or so I could afford.

On the canal towpath, I heard a pileated woodpecker calling in the distance and hoped to catch sight of it. As I walked up the gravel path that’s perpendicular to the towpath, I heard the bird call loudly from close by. I couldn’t spot it, but then I noticed a big blob high in a tree at the back edge of the woods.

It was a mature bald eagle, and I was able to shoot through the trees along the trail from a couple of spots. Wanting to get closer for a better shot, I quick-walked up the trail until it stops in a clearing near a housing development.

A bald eagle in profile while perched atop a bare branch at the top of a tree.
Photographed from a distance, the bald eagle perches atop a tree at the edge of the woods.

The bird was in plain few, still a fair distance from me. As I started to reach for my camera, the eagle took off. I took a series of shots. While the first several were blurry, my Canon locked onto the bird as it flew away. I got a few decent frames, including the photo topping this post.

I was eager to get home and see the eagle photos, but the pileated woodpecker again cried out just off the trail. I had to find it. I looked and looked and looked, and after a couple more nearby calls I spotted it just as it flew off the top of a tree. I didn’t bother with the camera, content to watch the big bird streak away to the southwest.

I had my eagle shots. I’m hoping the pileated will give me a raincheck. 🦅

Common yellowthroats are still with us

I am not shy in sharing my enthusiasm for common yellowthroats. Consider this another stanza in a long-running poem in tribute.

As with many species, the yellowthroat’s territory-claiming, mate-seeking songs of spring subside over the summer.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard scant few of their familiar “wickety-wickety-wickety” proclaimings from the parks and preserves I visit in Mercer County.

Last Sunday, I saw two female yellowthroats cavorting in bushes underneath the trees at the trailhead by the Pole Farm parking lot on Keefe Road. I can’t recall if I heard them singing, although they may have made a few chipping sounds as they flitted among the branches.

Female yellowthroat at the Pole Farm.

Friday morning, I tried my luck on the Reed-Bryan Farm side of Mercer Meadows. Few birds were about, but I did hear a common yellowthroat as I made my way downhill from the parking lot trailhead.

I walked over the footbridge above the creek at the bottom of the hill. Looking to my left, I was relieved to find that the path that wraps around the woods had been mowed. When I visited Reed-Bryan a week ago, the path was overgrown with vegetation, impassable for somebody like me not having applied bug spray and wearing short pants.

Trail showing tire tracks where the path had been recently mowed. The path curves to the right, bisecting fields of tall yellow wildflowers and stalks of grass. A line of trees is in the background, along with a patch of cloudy blue sky.
In the clear again: the path along the woods at Reed-Bryan Farm

I was able to take the path unimpeded. I looped my way around the woods to my left. As I approached the path that would take me back to the main trail and my car, I spotted a small bird fly into a small tree. It was a male yellowthroat, with his black mask above his deep yellow body.

Mr. Yellowthroat stayed in the center of the tree for a couple of minutes, moving from branch to branch. I was able to take several shots, including the one topping this post.

This likely won’t have been my last yellowthroat photo op before winter sets in, but my sightings will diminish in the coming weeks

These sprightly creatures brighten my mornings, even on one so cloudy as we had Friday. 🦅

For variety’s sake, Veterans Park in Hamilton serves us well

Veterans Park in Hamilton is just a bit too far for me to reach on pre-work mornings, so I usually go there on weekends. The man-made lake attracts a good variety of birds, and it’s not unusual to spot a bald eagle there.

Last weekend, I paid an afternoon visit and spotted some shorebirds on the edge of the water. I carefully picked my way down the slope from the paved path and immediately was drawn to what turned out to be a lesser yellowlegs. It was standing in the shallow water on one leg, the other tucked underneath its body.

A few killdeer were nearby, which I soon spooked, and a couple of least and solitary sandpipers were there, too, for a time.

A solitary sandpiper walks in the shallow green water off the shore of the lake.
A solitary sandpiper walks in the shallow, green water.

I walked along the lake shore past a flock of mallards that swam away from me. Ahead was a trail in woods that hug the shoreline, and I passed a teenage girl throwing bread to a scaggy-looking laughing gull.

A great egret was fishing off shore, and I wrapped up my half-hour visit by taking a few shots of it.

A great egret pulls a small fish out of the lake, with water splashing around the bird's yellow beak.
A great egret plucks a small, unfortunate fish out of the water.

There’s more to explore the park than just the lake and its shores. One of these days I’ll back and do just that. 🦅

A bobolink party at the Pole Farm

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.

A bobolink perched on green and red grass stalks, its brown and yellow coat gleaming in warm morning sunshine.
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. 🦅

Birds kissed by morning light

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. 🦅

row, partly in shade from the green and yellow leaves framing it, opens its beak while perched on a stalk.
This field sparrow was maybe 15 feet from me, perched long enough for me to take several shots.

An abundance of pewees enlivens the soundscape

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.

Sic transit natura. 🦅

It’s good to be back home and welcoming warblers

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.

A bobolink, framed by grasses perches on a branch.
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.

Four birders looking up into the trees.
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.

A female American redstart, with a gray head and yellow breast, spreads its wings and flies out of a tree.
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. 🦅

A little birding in Downeast Maine

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.

A hummingbird hovers just above the top of a stalk of cardinal flowers, poised to poke its long beak into one of the blossoms.

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.

An American woodcock is seen through green leaves, its long beak mostly obscured by a fern frond.
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.

A seagull stands on rocky ground.
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. 🦅