Harvest Time

A common scene in these here parts at this time of the year.

But not always where one might easily see it.

But yesterday, as Patty and I were returning from the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, we chanced upon this scene on the side of Route 563.

And we weren't the only folks to stop and watch. There was a small crowd. And seeing as we arrived as they were finishing with this bog, it was no doubt the remnants of a larger crowd.

It is very interesting how they corral the berries and vacuum them up. The floating yellow barrier slowly being wound in, forcing the berries into tighter and tighter space until they are all in the truck on the left. The truck on the right the receptacle for a the non-berry bits.

Below is the scene on our way down to Forsythe. Patty had the foresight to have us stop to take pictures.

Image courtesy Patty Rehn

I don't know when they started, but from what I saw it seemed a very efficient way to harvest. And it sure is a colorful one.

Perhaps you'll be enjoying some of these in just under a months time.

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We went to Forsythe to see a Common Greenshank. And we did, albeit from quite a distance. This is a bird of the old world, and only the second ever recorded in New Jersey.

When we got there we found a crowd of folks searching for the the bird in what is known as Danzenbaker Pool. And we set up our spotting scope next to a gentleman named Jim Danzenbaker, the pool having been named for his father. We had met Jim on a boat off the coast of Oregon, looking for and finding birds, this past August on the last day of our solar eclipse trip.

And as for the Common Greenshank, it turns out we had encountered them before as well, on our trip to Kenya.