sharp-shinned hawk – The Jersey Birder

Surprise sightings aided by e-Bird’s photo recognition software

A song sparrow perches on a horizontal tree branch with brown grasses in the background.

It’s no surprise to see a song sparrow in my neck of the woods. They appear regularly at our feeders at home and in the parks and woods across this part of the country. This morning, I caught the one topping this post near the parking lot at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. While mostContinue reading “Surprise sightings aided by e-Bird’s photo recognition software”

Surprise! It’s a dickcissel

A dickcissel peeks out from the grasses in which it is perched. The bird has a yellow throat and eye stripe, a white abdoment and brown wings.

One of the things I love about birding is its unpredictability. You get skunked one day, strike gold(finches) the next. Today was one of the latter, when my pal Jim and I made three stops in and around Princeton. The first and primary stop was the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, and we had near instantContinue reading “Surprise! It’s a dickcissel”