Close Encounters

Birding hasn't been phenomenal lately but the migrating birds are finally showing up in dribs and drabs. The good news is that the birds that are coming through are allowing close approach - even when Peanut is with me. A few photos from the past week starting with the new local dog walking spot. This place is great because it is filled with weeds like goldenrod. I caught 2 different species picking through the weeds for bugs last week. I showed you Yellow-rumped Warbler in the last post. Here is Palm Warbler in almost the same place.

Palm Warbler

Here is Swamp Sparrow looking at me from the bushes.

I did manage to get down to Cape May yesterday. The bad new is that I totally missed the really "good" day which was Thursday, AND I missed a few rare birds too. The good news is that I had close encounters with a few warblers by the lighthouse. This Black-throated Green Warbler flitted around in the cedar trees and even dropped onto the grass for a minute.

Black-throated Green Warbler

Ruby-crowned Kinglets are literally everywhere this week. If I counted every one that I saw this week, I would be in the hundreds.They are usually in perpetual motion which makes photos difficult. Here is one that actually sat still for a minute.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

A Pine Warbler really put on a show staying very close to the path and picking bugs out of the cedar trees.

Pine Warbler

 Pine Warbler gets a bug!

Pine Warbler with bug

It was a pretty picture with the late day lighting, all of the berries on the cedar and the nice dark background. Of course, the bug didn't think so. Zoom in if you want to see the bug in detail.

Pine Warbler with bug

Another Contest

This year has certainly been a lot less hectic without having a Big Year contest to win. I didn't chase much, traveled outside of the Delaware Valley area, didn't have to drive like a maniac up and down the NJ Turnpike chasing after birds that I really don't care about, and, well, got bored.  You read that right. It's one thing to not have to chase everything but it is quite another to not have anything to chase - if you know what I mean.

Fear not dear blog readers, I am not about to announce another Big Year but I wanted you to know that another contest is on the horizon. The DVOC has an annual photo contest which I entered a few years ago (got a second place showing) but didn't enter last year due to frantically chasing another bird or whatever. I entered this year.  Friends and family helped me select 4 photos to enter in the "Birds" category:

Peek-A-Boo

The Stalker

B-52 Bomber

I Know It's Here Somewhere

There are quite a few good photographers in the DVOC.  I wonder if I have a fighting chance with these. My friend Harvey voted for this one but my version of the photo was much duller than the one he "cleaned up" for me in PhotoShop. What do you think - next year's winner?

Color Me Cape May

I also entered a few other photos in other categories. We'll see how they fair. I think the Ruddy Daggerwing butterfly from the last post is my best chance of a win.  Anyway, contest winners will be announced at the Dec 18th meeting. Please attend if you can. You don't need to be a member to attend a meeting.  7:30 PM at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly.  Bonus - we go out for drinks afterward!

World Series 2014 - A New High

Frankly, there were a few new things this year including a new team member.  Unfortunately, Barbara and Tara couldn't make it this year but Harvey stepped up in their place. Unbeknownst to Harvey, he was going to be on the team anyway we just had to find the right way to hook him. We used some good bait. No, not the kind of bait that women use on men. The kind that birders use on other birders. The kind that fun people use on other fun people. We used the oldest ploy - the "we're shorthanded and need help" ploy. He never saw it coming. He certainly didn't see it on Friday when I texted him about scouting shorebirds. He didn't see it at 3 AM on Saturday when he picked us up in HIS VAN!

WSB - Philly Bird Nerds 2014

He started to get wary when we gave him the camo bucket hat that Barbara and Di got him with the team logo on it. I think he started to so come to his senses around 3 PM. He was delirious by 7. We ended the day at 9 M with a new high total - 147. Di and Lori were both terrific all day. They had plenty of energy, kept Harvey laughing so he would keep driving, picked out a ton of birds AND didn't want to quit until we got an owl - which we finally did at 8:30 PM.

As usual, the day before and the day after the World Series was great. Great weather and great birds. The actual day was overcast with wind and periods of rain which made tallying the birds difficult.

We started slow in the wee hours and then picked up steam with a ton of warblers at Higbee. On any other day, we would have been tickled but on the Big Day the only thing we think about is what we missed. We didn't get Bald Eagle. We didn't get Killdeer. We didn't get Cedar Waxwing. We didn't get 2 ducks that we found easily the day before. But we did try new things (ask the others about 5 Hour Energy), we had a ton of laughs and got a new teammate ( oh yeah, we'll rope him in again next year).

You'll notice no photos from the day. The pace was too fast, we got alot of birds by hearing them rather than seeing them, and the weather was terrible. Here are some photos from Sunday morning which was an awesome migration day, awesome weather, and cooperative birds.

Indigo Bunting (with floss?)

Prairie Warbler

Scarlet Tanager

Feel free to sponsor the team with a donation. Send me a check. We will forward them on to a conservation fund later. We haven't picked one yet but we will soon.

Magic of Dusk

Di, Barbara and I met our new birding friend Harvey to check out a new trail in Del Haven this morning.  We didn't see much, but we did hear and see our first Ovenbird of the year and then did some chores all afternoon.  Nothing special really until we went to the Cape May State Park after dinner.  What an unexpected treat. Di asked me to look at a bush to see a warbler, but when I looked at the bush, I immediately noticed something much more interesting.

Common Nighthawk - roosting

This is a Common Nighthawk which I have never seen roosting. I have only ever seen them flying. They are nocturnal birds that roost like this during the day and then fly around beginning at dusk catching insects in flight. They have extraordinarily long wings with white patches on the wrists which make the ID unmistakable in flight.  Click on the photo to enlarge to see the tiny beak on this bird. 

I was so excited that I send out a text message about it.  Within a few minutes, Richard Crossley showed up with his camera to see the bird.  Richard is a famous birder and author of Crossley ID Guide series.  We have 2 of them at the house.  They are really good guides that have alot of photos of each bird in various "normal" positions and habitats.  We stood there and watched the bird until sunset when the bird took flight, circled the pond and flew off into the night. 

One of Those Days

Yesterday was one of those days where everything just falls into place to produce a great day of birding and photography. As you know, winter storm Nemo (since when do we have to use names with snow storms?) hit us on Saturday, but we were virtually unaffected with less than 3" of snow.  Sunday turned out to be one of those stellar winter days with gorgeous blue skies and just a hint of thin cirrus clouds. It started out at 15 degrees but quickly warmed up to 30. I know that doesn't sound very warm, but it was delightful to be outdoors with warm sunshine and very little wind.

In addition to the fabulous weather, the DVOC had a photography trip planned to Barnegat Lighthouse so I decided to join them for the morning.  Roxy and I showed up a little late but quickly found the group which was being lead by Steve Kacir. Cindy and her husband Scott were the other participants.  We wandered down the beach and along the jetty for the better part of 3 hours watching and photographing winter ducks and shorebirds.  It was really great to be with the group. We all had the same appreciation for the day and the birds.

It was one of those days.  One of those days where I have so many photos that I can't show them all in one post.  One of those days where I have so many photos that I can't decide which ones to leave out.  One of those days where I thought to myself - it's about time I had one of these days. 

Harlequin ducks are just about the gaudiest ducks that you can find. I have always had trouble getting good photos in the past due to poor lighting/weather conditions or being too far away.  Not yesterday.  We had perfect weather for photography and the ducks were literally swimming and sunning themselves within 20 yards of us.  They are pretty comfortable with people walking close to them on the jetty.  Here are a few photos. The first photo shows a single male Harlequin in the water.

Harlequin Duck - Male

Here is a group of males swimming in unison. They would group together and then form a single line, then group together again.  I love this one where they are all facing away and converging.

Group of Male Harlequin Ducks

 In case you were wondering what all of this was about - of course it is all about getting a female.  Here she is in all of her drab-ness being courted by 5 males.  She appears to be unimpressed by any of their flaunting and chasing.

Male Harlequins courting Female

 Although she appeared not to care about what was going on, she was seen a few minutes later hanging out on the rock with one of her beaus. . .

Male and Female Harlequin Ducks

 Here is another male preening in the sun.  This photos is barely cropped.  I was standing on the rock jetty about 15 feet away.

Male Harlequin preening

 As if those shots weren't enough, here is a photo of the Harlequin flapping his wings after preening AND a Purple Sandpiper wandered into the same frame.  I almost fainted when I saw that this shot turned out.

Harlequin and Purple Sandpiper

 What was Roxy doing while I was on top of the jetty photographing gaudy ducks?  Check it out - she refuses to come on to the jetty which is a good thing since her presence would definitely scare off all of the birds and I would never allow that to happen.  But there she is at the edge of the water wagging her tail waiting for me to return.  Good dog!

Roxy at Barnegat Lighhouse

More to come. I'll post other photos and the rest of Sunday's story later in the week.

Morning at Higbee

Higbee beach is the place to be in fall migration.  We go most weekend mornings and arrive just after sunrise.  This new Daylight Savings Time schedule is great because we really don't have to be there before 7:30 or so.  This weekend was particularly spectacular - not for the diversity of species, but for sheer numbers of birds.  NJ Audubon and other researchers have a guy stationed up on the dredge spoil mound counting birds as they fly by.  He counted 31,000 Yellow-rumped Warblers on Sunday morning.  He counted 7,600 Robins.  And hundreds of other birds too. Mind you, he only counts until about 11 AM.  On Monday, he added another 10,000 Yellow-rumps and 8,700 Robins plus others for a total of 60,000+ birds over the 2 mornings.  That's alot of birds folks! 

Birders and a few fisherman are usually the only people around Higbee beach that early in the morning, but Sunday was a bit unusual.  There were trucks and workmen and boats and ATVs in the parking lot when we arrived.  It seems like some old guy drove his boat into the Cape May canal jetty on Friday night and sunk it.  The workmen were there trying to figure out how to get it towed.  This guy didn't miss by a little bit. He missed by alot!  Look where he hit the jetty.  The beach is just out of the picture at the bottom of the frame.

Boat Wreck - Cape May Canal Jetty

Back in the fields, we just stood there looking up watching birds fly overhead.  Some of them landed but most kept flying.  Here are a few photos of the birds that landed.  Unfortunately, it is really hard to capture the flight in photos or even video. It is just too expansive to document.  You'll have to experience it for yourself sometime.

Here are 2 birds that look the same from a distance, but are quite different species.  The first bird is Blue Grosbeak (notice the big beak).  The second bird is Indigo Bunting.  Both birds are bright blue in spring/ summer and dull tan/brown in fall/winter.

Blue Grosbeak

Indigo Bunting

Here are a few sparrows.  The first bird is Swamp Sparrow.  The second bird is Chipping Sparrow.

Swamp Sparrow

Chipping Sparrow

We probably saw over 1,000 Yellow-rumped warblers in the trees and in the field on Sunday.  Here are a few other species that actually landed.  The fist bird is Tennessee Warbler - kind of dull olive and plain looking. The second bird is Palm Warbler.  These birds can be kind of dull and plain too, but this guy was still in his yellow and chestnut finest.

Tennessee Warbler

Palm Warbler

Finally, here are another pair of birds that look similar.  Mocking bird is first and Brown Thrasher second.  This is probably one of the best photos I have of Mockingbird.  Even though they are common birds, they are still fun to photograph.  The Thrasher photo was a coup for me.  They are usually hidden behind bushes and branches making it difficult to get a decent photo.  Neither of these photos are barely cropped.  Both birds popped up pretty close and posed nicely.

Northern Mockingbird

Brown Thrasher

 Stay tuned.  I have alot of stuff coming at you this week.  More from last weekend AND something very different coming up next weekend. 

Winterizing

Connie and I headed up to the camp in Potter County (God's Country) this weekend to winterize the cabin.  It's a good thing we went this weekend.  It was 28 degrees on Saturday morning which would definitely freeze the pipes if it stayed that cold for a few days.  The camp was in tip top shape and hardly took any effort at all to winterize.  That left us with time to wander around hiking and birdwatching.  Here are some photos and stories.

Sparrows are definitely the biggest migrants at the moment.  I got good looks, but lousy photos of Fox Sparrow.

 Fox Sparrow

Also have a mystery sparrow which I want to call White-throated which are quite common, but this bird didn't look quite right.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.  I know it is a terrible photo.

 Mystery Sparrow

Here is something that you don't see very often - a Pileated Woodpecker hanging from a grape vine in the parking lot at Sinnemahoning State Park.  This guy (yes, male identified by the red mustache) squawked from the woods, then flew into view and picked at the grapes for a few minutes. In case you don't know much about Pileated Woodpeckers, they are our largest woodpecker - about the size of a crow - and usually chisel out large channels in trees digging out bugs and grubs.  That is what made this encounter so odd. Connie and I just stood there and gawked.  (I just used squawked and gawked in the same story)

 Pileated Woodpecker

Another unusual sighting this weekend was this Roughed Grouse.  We see them around the camp quite often, but we usually see just their butts as they fly out of sight.  Not this bird.  He/she flew up onto a branch and watched me take photographs for about 5 minutes before flying away, giving me great views of his/her crest and face pattern.  Naturally, the lighting was terrible in the woods before 8 AM, but I got a photo worth keeping.

Roughed Grouse

Oh, did I mention that hunting season is in full swing and we feared for our lives while in the woods?  Bow season, small game season, and muzzle loader season have the woods packed with men trying to kill something.  Luckily, we had some blaze orange garments to wear.  We took a ride up on Ridge Road and had our photo taken at one of the vistas.  Bloopers too.  Did you ever notice that the dog will never look at the camera when you have it on a timer?  Dag nabbit! 

 Blooper

After 3 or 4 attempts with me running back and forth to the camera which was propped up on the camera bag which was teetering on a rock, the dog looked in the general direction of the camera as the shutter snapped.  Ain't we pretty in orange?

Family protrait - in Blaze Orange

Florida Follow Up

I am really amazed with the new camera.  We went up to The Villages to see my Mom on Sunday and got some REALLY good photos of ducks floating around on the golf course ponds.  Here is a great shot of a Canvasback duck stretching his leg with a coot and another sleeping duck

Here is the same shot cropped a little bit so that you can see that the coot is in mid-quack:

And cropped again so that you can see the details of the Canvasback's webbed foot and his red eye:

My point here is that the new camera captures so many pixels that I can crop this photo this much and the resolution is still this good.  Click on the photo to see it enlarged.  The resolution is still really good.

Here are some other shots of ducks that came out pretty good too.

This is a male Ring-necked Duck. They should really be called Ring-billed if you ask me.  Here is the female:

And finally, a portrait of a coot:

After not having many posts last month, I have tons of fodder from this trip to post a few more in the coming days.  Stay tuned. . .

Picture-In-Picture

For the first time in awhile, I am really excited to be sitting in my office in Center City Philadelphia.  Don't get me wrong, I would rather be out birding somewhere, but I have to pay the bills somehow!  The reason that I am excited is because I stumbled upon an idea to add wall art to my office using big artwork.  I then stumbled upon Megaprint.com after a quick Google search.  The result is that I now look up from my desk and see this:

It's 6 foot wide by 3 foot high which is what I needed to fill that awful, blank, white wall.  What makes this vinyl banner so great for me is that I took the photo!  Every time I look up from my desk, I am reminded of the day that I got to spend with the Black Skimmers on Cape May's beach (read the post here) and it makes me smile. 

I should tell you that the sales support at Megaprint was great.  I emailed Alex back and forth a few times asking about wallpaper, which was my original idea.  He suggested the vinyl which is a better option for my office.  He also reviewed the quality of the photo and suggested the 6' x 3' size to fit the resolution of the photo.

Gotta go take a phone call from another client but don't worry - I have something nice to look at until I can get outside again.

All Righty Then

The weather finally broke around here which means that the birds are finally on the move south.  Not only are the birds flocking into south Jersey, but so are the birders.  I have a few blog posts in my head after the past 2 days, but I thought I would post this one today which deals with photography and photographers.

I have been using my camera and new lens for a while now and still don't really know what I'm doing.  Yes, I get good photos sometimes, but that doesn't mean that I know what I'm doing.  Well I finally got up the nerve to ask a couple of photographers that I have been hanging around with if they would help me.  Gerry and John obliged and gave me some tips yesterday.  Gerry gave me some more tips today.

Here are some of the results from an amazing warbler experience this afternoon.  I literally could have touched the Cape May warbler.  I shot about 60 photos of this bird over the course of an hour - along with another 200+ of the Black-throated Blue, Blackpoll and Parula.  I still deleted most of the shots but at least I got a few really good ones.

Cape May Warbler - notice the cheek pattern which is the diagnostic field mark

Blackpoll Warbler - notice the eye line and wing bars which are diagnostic field marks

Black-throated Blue Warbler - notice, well the black throat and blue color

Northern Parula - notice the olive patch on his back which is diagnostic field mark

I must tell you that these photos are not cropped by much.  I only cropped them to remove leaves and other distracting features.  The Parula is the best shot that I have ever taken of this species - thanks to Gerry.  Here  is another shot of the Parula hanging upside down which is typical for this active little bugger.

Notice the little piece of debris that just fell out of the bird's mouth and the way the sun lit up the belly of this bird.  Just a great shot if I do say so myself.

The birds just didn't want to leave this particular tree. Here are a couple of shots with multiple species in the same frame.

Cape May Warbler and Parula working the crux of the tree

Blackpoll Warbler replaced the Parula - there must have been something yummy there

Hoping for more good stuff tomorrow.  I have another story from Friday that I will post if tomorrow doesn't pan out.Let me know what you think of the photos by posting a comment.