Cooper’s hawk – The Jersey Birder

Stretching my routes at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm

A song sparrow, with its beak wide open and its tongue visible inside, belts out its song while perched on a diagonal tree branch.

My new bionic knees have rejuvenated my ability to tramp around the woods, and I’ve been steadily increasing the distances I walk in this new year. Today, I put in 2.5 miles on one of my favorite routes that takes me to the north end of the park. Along the way, I had decent lightContinue reading “Stretching my routes at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm”

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”

Some days, one bird is enough

A Cooper's hawk stands in grass on a trail, turning its head slightly to the left.

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 toContinue reading “Some days, one bird is enough”