Pine Barrens – The Jersey Birder

A most cooperative bird: the yellow-throated warbler

A yellow-throated warbler leans forward from a tree branch, with a spikey reddish fruit from a sweet gum tree just below it.

As my birding pal Jim and I made the hour-and-a-quarter drive to Estell Manor Park on Saturday, he guaranteed that I would get a lifer bird: the yellow-throated warbler. Never has been getting a lifer so easy. As we got out of the car in the parking lot at the visitor center, Jim immediately saidContinue reading “A most cooperative bird: the yellow-throated warbler”

A birding adventure in the Pine Barrens

Red-headed woodpecker sitting on a nearly horizontal tree limb.

We weren’t out to find the mythical Jersey Devil. My friend Jim and I set out for Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area in the Pinelands to find pine warblers and red-headed woodpeckers. Jim, who has been visiting Colliers Mills since he was a kid, guaranteed that we’d find the red-headed woodpeckers and figured we hadContinue reading “A birding adventure in the Pine Barrens”

Chasing the rarest of Jersey birds: the red-flanked bluetail

On this last day of holiday break, I could not resist the siren song of the red-flanked bluetail, a Eurasian native that has, curiously, been hanging out in a residential neighborhood in South Jersey since early December. It’s the first bird of its kind to be reported in the Eastern states. My friend Laura textedContinue reading “Chasing the rarest of Jersey birds: the red-flanked bluetail”