Mirage

Since there were no birds to look at, nor photograph, at Barnegat I spent my time looking at ships.

Ships that really weren't there, where "there" was where I was looking.

Got that?

(That "guy" standing on the horizon on the left wasn't really there either.)

The ships were below, or in some cases mostly below, the horizon.

The air acts like a lens bending light rays as they pass through it. Usually, the rays travel in straight lines. But when there is a strong temperature differential the light bends, as it does when passing through a lens.

At the lens-air boundary the air is refracted, which is a fancy word for "bent". You've no doubt noticed how a straw looks bent in a glass of water. The water-air boundary also refracts the light.

The temperature gradient refracts the rays back downwards. Thus rays that would have normally shot well above my head were bent down to my eyes. My, and your, brain expects light to travel in a straight line. Thus we see the ship where a straight light ray would have come from.

A pretty cool trick if you ask me.

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You can learn more about mirages on the Atmospheric Optics site, including my Death Valley lake that isn't OPOD.

Merlin

We woke up way too early for a Saturday. And proceeded to layer up as it was 25 °F outside, a bit chilly. Loaded up the car with optics and headed off to Barnegat Lighthouse State Park.

Seems we got there a bit early. Several months early. If you clicked on the link above (or here) you may have noticed that all of the previous posts tagged "Barnegat" are dated in March. Which may explain the dearth of waterfowl and shorebirds. Other than a few bad pictures of distant ducks (which have already been consigned to the bit bucket) there was nothing, nada, zippo, there today.

In fact, if it wasn't for this Merlin, spotted by Patty who was frantically trying to alert me to the bird, I'd have no good bird pictures from the day.

The bird let me get rather close, not concerned with my approach at all.

Well, I was using a 600 lens. So I guess close is a relative term. But the bird went about its business, stretching and preening with me shooting away.

Turning disappointment into success.

Barnegat 2017 Continued ...

As I mentioned, Barnegat Lighthouse State Park is a prime place for wintering waterfowl. And despite the paucity of Harlequin Ducks there were other birds for our viewing pleasure.

Common Loons are abundant.

Much to the detriment of the local crustaceans.

Long-tailed ...

... and Red-breasted Mergansers were among the other duck species in the inlet.

And spotting a Razorbill is always a treat.

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Shorebirds also find the park to their liking.

Ruddy Turnstones ...

... and Purple Sandpipers ...

... were in abundance.

And active in the little pools on the jetty.

So despite the lack of Harlequins we had a very nice day of birding.

Harlequin

The reason one goes to Barnegat Lighthouse State Park in February, and why Patty and I were there and saw the fire, was to see these:

Harlequin Ducks, like this dapper male seen here.

As February days go, it was a rather nice one.

Sunny, relatively warm, with little wind.

But we only saw this one male Harlequin. This was quite unusual.

February is prime time for ducks along the Jersey shore.

And Barnegat is a prime location for winter ducks.

I don't have a single image of a female Harlequin from this visit.

Nor an image of multiple Harlequins. Very strange.

Bye bye.

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I took this picture of a Rehn in February 2011 at Barnegat. The first time Patty and I were there concurrently.

I have no idea what she was taking a picture of.

Or why she got in my way to take it.

We did see Harlequins, like this female:

Water Wall

It was a warm sunny February day, and we decided to visit Barnegat Lighthouse State Park.

So did quite a few other people, the parking lot, as well as the street parking outside the park, was completely full. Cars were circling the lot, waiting for others to leave. I had never seen it like this.

Now while the air was warm, the water was still cold.

Perfect conditions for a Mirage. And I was not disappointed. (Nor was it the first time.)

Click on any of the images below (and in any post) to bigafy it. Bigafying these images will give a better look at the effect.

There appears to be a wall of water across the center of the image. Not a impending tidal wave, but rather light playing tricks on the eye.

Light rays curve toward the cooler, denser air layer, bending rays that initially head up back down toward our eyes, resulting in an image where water appears above where it should be. As always, Les Cowley's Atmospheric Optics site has more info.

The park was full of people. And who could blame them, it was the first nice weekend of the year and the perfect cure for cabin fever. But I doubt many noticed the weird goings on out in the ocean. And even fewer still realized what it was.

I wonder how many things I don't see because I don't know what I'm looking at? And don't even realize there is something to see.

Mirages

I noticed this from out on the jetty at Barnegat on Saturday.

And this:

The effect is bit more evident in the second image, especially when bigafied. But is is still not obvious. And I doubt most people would give it a second glance.

Here's a closeup of the second image. You can see there is a second image of the building upside down, below the weird brown line that extends across the image, which is known as the "vanishing line effect". More info can be found here at Les Cowley's site (but you knew that, right?).

Is That a Bird In Your Pocket?

Yes, yes it is. The bird, a Long-tailed Duck, is in a pocket. And I put it there. But it is not my pocket.

It is Cliff Hence's pocket. It was fortunate that Cliff had such big pockets. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to carry the duck back to his car. But I'm getting ahead of the story here.

Yesterday, Patty led her first field trip for the DVOC, to Barnegat Lighthouse State Park. Known for its overwintering waterfowl and its sometimes treacherous jetty.

Patty in Action on the Jetty

I slipped and fell on the jetty yesterday, scraping my knee and getting my jeans dirty. My camera was fortunately unharmed in the incident. But this story isn't about me ...

One of the main attractions of Barnegat at this time of year is this handsome fellow, a male Harlequin Duck.

Brant were also common in the inlet.

And there were a good number of loons, both Common like the one shown below, and Red-Throated, which were camera shy.

We had but three species of shorebird, Dunlin, Purple Sandpipers, and Rudy Turnstones. Here is shot of the latter.

But the stars of yesterday's show were the Long-tailed Ducks, there were large flocks throughout the inlet. We heard them calling all morning.

But the bird in the pocket did not want her starring role.

Cliff was first to spot the bird, struggling to get out from between the large stones that form the jetty.

As you can see, these ducks need to build up speed before takeoff. And our poor trapped duck had no room for a takeoff run. So she was trying to jump out, without success.

Worse yet, she was being pummeled against the rocks as the wave broke over the jetty.

Cliff had by then sat down on the rocks and was trying to lift the bird with his feet, but it was wary of us and kept out of range. Then fate smiled on the bird and washed it closer to Cliff. He quickly moved into the space between the rocks, trapping the bird in a smaller space from which he could retrieve it.

But when he tried to lift it up, he was surprised to find that he could not. It was hooked. And the hook was attached to fishing line that was snagged somewhere below. Fortunately I had a pocket knife and with the help of third birder we managed to cut the line. But we could not remove the hook from the bird.

So Cliff handed the bird to me and climbed up from between the rocks. I had called a local wildlife rehab center, Woodford Cedar Run and they had agreed to take the bird. So now we needed to get it there. And that's where Cliff's pocket came in. We put the bird in his pocket, which both calmed the bird and held it securely as we headed back down the jetty to the parking lot.

This jetty.

With all those slippery rocks. And we were all the way out at the end. Imagine needing to hold a duck, with both hands, and trying to negotiate this. Thanks to Cliff's Big Pockets we did not have to.

It took a while, but Cliff and I made it back to the cars. Cliff punched in Cedar Run's address to his GPS unit and was soon off. He later emailed that he had made it to Cedar Run and that the hook had been successfully removed. Cliff also posted a video of the bird struggling on his Facebook page.

It was a nice trip on a great morning to be out. And thanks to Cliff's efforts one that had a happy ending for one Long-tailed Duck.

Familiar Faces

February is the time to visit Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, the time to see the wintering waterfowl. And perhaps something unexpected.

The day of our visit was a nice one, no wind, and surprisingly few people (or shorebirds). We did see these familiar faces (can you name them all?):

One of the few people we saw was sitting not far past the lighthouse on the walkway before the jetty, camera with very big lens aimed at ... nothing. Hmmm. So I asked, "what are you waiting for?" "Whatever," he replied. We chatted a bit, with him mentioning that he was down for the weekend form Massachusetts just to shoot the waterfowl. We then wished each other luck and Patty and I headed down the jetty. But there was something ...

As we were leaving we met up again as he was photographing the lighthouse. I then mentioned that I thought we had seen each other before. And it turned out that we had.

We had last seen each other each other in January. In Vermont. On the side of a snow covered dirt road. Looking at this:

A (much too distant for good photos but cool to see through a scope) northern hawk owl. This is a bird that normally inhabits Canada and Alaska and is rarely found in the lower forty-eight. We saw it on a weekend getaway.

We chatted some more and I asked where I might see his photos. He looked for a card but couldn't find one. So I made a note of his website. Still there was something nagging at a corner of my mind ...

When I got home I went and pulled my Trinidad and Tobago field guide from the shelf. And found his business card. We had first met at Asa Wright Lodge in Trinidad, Christmas week 2012. He had helped me set my flash so I could take the pictures of the bats using the hummingbird feeders, after I realized they were using them (he got some very nice shots).

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His name is Chris Ciccone and you can find his excellent images here. Enjoy!