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Point Breeze
After yesterday afternoon’s cold front, we thought we had it made this morning. The woods along the Delaware River would, we thought, be swarming with warblers and vireos and flycatchers and tanagers....
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Rogers Refuge
Gellert and I found ourselves with some time on our hands yesterday afternoon in Princeton, while Alison checked this that and the other in the libraries. So we fought our way through the...
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Breakfast on the Fly
I arrived a few minutes early this morning for my Sandy Hook Day with Ed and Hamish. The ocean was alive with gulls, and soon I saw a small form flying low over the water amid the swarm, a sparrow or a...
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Who Discovered That Warbler?
Now here’s a true mega: A Cape May Warbler, the second for Britain, is being seen on Unst, that delightfully named island in the Shetlands. Inevitably, the oldtimers have already started reminiscing...
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West Coast Girl
This sweet little Oregon Junco was on Sandy Hook’s “road to nowhere” this afternoon. A rare bird in New Jersey, and the second scarce sparrow of the day, after MaryMargaret and I enjoyed the...
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Scoting the Surf
Weird ducks, weird names. Nobody knows where the English word “scoter” comes from, whether it shares an origin with verbs like “shoot” and “scoot” or with the equally obscure waterfowl name “scout.”...
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Will It Be a Snowy Winter?
This tall, dark, and handsome Snowy Owl, loafing in the dunes of Sandy Hook this morning, is one of about four reported in the state over the past couple of days, a total that is already better than...
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A Fork-tailed First
Audubon’s famous Fork-tailed Flycatcher, collected in New Jersey in June 1832, gets all the press. But that wasn’t the first fork-tail recorded in the US — or even, amazingly enough, the first for New...
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Maybe We Should Be Looking….
You’d have to be pretty oblivious not to know about this fall’s “invasion” of Snowy Owls into New York and New Jersey. Its timing thus far has been almost identical to that of the legendary (but very...
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Yes, a Snowy Winter
As if there were still any doubt, it’s become apparent that this is a “good fall” in New York and New Jersey for the infinitely appealing Snowy Owl. This past weekend saw single-party single-day...
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A Narrow Escape
This Slate-colored Junco is easy to pick out as it feeds on the ground outside my work room window. Not so easy to pick off, though: it looks like one of our neighborhood Cooper’s Hawks – or, heaven...
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Icepipers
With the shore ponds of Monmouth County mostly frozen, Alison and I spent a short hour at the tip of the Manasquan jetty yesterday mid-day, relishing the sunshine, grateful for the lack of wind, and...
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The Pleasure of Standing Still
It’s been unpleasant enough lately to be outdoors at all, much less to linger in one spot while the wind howls and the snow swirls. But yesterday was different: our latest “winter storm” — we called...
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The Last Resort
How do you know it’s February? Finally, after brightening the landscape for nearly six months now, those festive red sumac fruits are drawing birds. With softer, more palatable food sources pretty...
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How Many Wing Bars?
One of the few things I can still enjoy about winter in the snow zone is the chance to spend some time with one of my (fifty or sixty or so) favorite emberizids, the American Tree Sparrow. There’s a...
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Red-bellied Woodpecker
I’ve been watching Red-bellied Woodpeckers since way back in Centurus days, and we weren’t at all surprised to see this one using the rock-hard ice crust of our backyard as an anvil for opening...
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What’s So Rough About a Rabbit’s Foot?
This was the sight that greeted me yesterday noon as I pulled in to DeKorte Park in the Meadowlands. Rough-legged Hawks aren’t exactly rare here in northern New Jersey, but these tiny-billed visitors...
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Brookdale Park
Brookdale is the next “neighborhood” over from ours, and its namesake park — one of Essex County’s many Olmsted designs — is conveniently on the way to any place we have to go in Montclair. After a few...
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Brookdale Bird Walks: May 2014
Join Rick Wright, the author of the new ABA Field Guide to New Jersey Birds, in discovering the birds of Brookdale Park. Our two-hour walks begin at 7:00 am in the parking lot between the grandstand...
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