cold weather – The Jersey Birder

Cold-weather birding is back

A red-bellied woodpecker pauses on a tree branch before attacking the bark for bugs.

It was a chilly 13 degrees Fahrenheit when I reached the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm yesterday morning. Even without a breeze, few birds were out half an hour after sunrise. But avian activity picked up as I reached the woods up the central trail. First to appear were several robins flitting about the trees. IContinue reading “Cold-weather birding is back”

With the first frost of fall, some cool birds

A Cooper's hawk faces the rising sun while sitting on a thick tree branch.

With the thermometer at 30 degrees this morning, we had our first frost of the fall. It turned out to be a decent day for birding. I hadn’t been to the Reed-Bryan Farm side of Mercer Meadows for a while and decided to go there rather than to the Pole Farm side of the park.Continue reading “With the first frost of fall, some cool birds”

A cold morning for sparrows

Savannah sparrow perched on a tree branch and puffed up to keep warm on a cold, sunny morning.

We’re at the front end of a cold snap that will bring temperatures down into the single digits Fahrenheit for a few days. We had two to three inches of snow fall yesterday, and I pulled on my Muck boots to head to the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. It was slim pickings for birds. IContinue reading “A cold morning for sparrows”