Raptor Fest*

Southern New Jersey is a well known spot for raptors, birds of prey. There is the famous Cape May Hawk Watch, the spot to be for raptor migration. But not all of the birds continue south. Some decide to spend the winter in my home state.

Like this red-shouldered hawk. Until this year, I'd only seen this species in Florida. This month alone I've seen eight individuals, including this very cooperative bird, which sat in the tree and let me walk right up under it. Very cool.

Merlins have also been surprisingly common this year. Supposedly rare in New Jersey in the winter months, I've seen five this month. Including these two (I think the prey bird is a dark-eyed junco).

Who you looking at?

Bald eagles have become quite common, with over eighty mating pairs in the state. I've seen over twenty this year. Almost a trash bird.

I was planning to go to Conowingo Dam in Maryland last Saturday, but conditions, in the form of ice covered roads, led to a change in plans. And a jaunt about Cumberland County ensured. That's were I saw all of the birds shown here. At Conowingo one can see 100+ eagles at one place. Still on this trip we saw seven. Not bad for New Jersey.

Northern harriers, like this grey ghost, where actively hunting at every stop we made. Fun to watch, but hard to photograph, as they glide over fields. A lucky shot, this.

And there is the ubiquitous red-tailed hawk, like this one, who as also featured in my Sometimes post. They are starting to pair up and can often be found sitting together this time of year.

Also about, but yet to fly in front of my lens, are rough-legged hawks, kestrels, peregrine falcons, and several species of owls. Maybe I'll get some this weekend.

*****

*This year is the 10th anniversary of the Cumberland County Winter Eagle Festival, to be held this Saturday (February 5th, 2011). In its early years it was known as the Raptor Festival. Rumor has it the name was changed because too many people came looking for dinosaurs ... 

A Walk in the Park

We've had several nice snowfalls this winter and after the last a friend an I decided to go wandering.

"Where do you want to go?", "I don't know, where's somewhere pretty?", "I'd don't know, you live around here", "Yeah but you grew up here" ...

We eventually settled on Allaire State Park.

The village was snow covered, pristine, and except for us and a mother and daughter sledding, empty.

(Well the daughter was sledding, the mom, just watching.)

Just the way I like it.

We fed the titmice and chickadees by hand. To quick to photo though. We tried.

Sure, you hold still now!

There was beauty all about.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

(Can you tell I like snow?)

Not everything was frozen.

Shadows and sparkles.

Should you be inspired to try this for yourself, be aware that the proper footwear is essential to an enjoyable experience.

Have fun!

Promise

The promise of buds

Waiting as the Earth revolves

Winter becomes spring

Sometimes ...


You get lucky.

You don't.

(Ok, so my luck wasn't all bad. Just before it departed.)

Just Chillin ...

I spent Christmas with my sister and her family, 

and the day after it was nice out. 

(For a while anyways)

So we decided to build a fire.

(My brother-in-law is a bit of a pyromaniac.)

Ah, toasty.

He also likes to cook.

Note the cooler, not really needed ...

(But full of beer!)

((He enjoys a frosty beverage or two.))

(((As do I.)))

Your's truly, enjoying the fine winter's day.

(Time for selsun blue?)

((And another beer!))

The view from the house.

A hardy neighbor joins the party.

(And brought more beer!)

*****

We got six inches of snow here, and were on the edge of the storm. 

Back home snow fall amounts were in the ten to twenty inch range.

We stayed out to the beer was gone.

The fire burned on without us.

Bad Bird Photo of the Week

Sometimes, you just gotta blame the photographer ...

I spotted this bird with a kill (a snow goose?) behind a church in Cumberland County New Jersey as I was driving by. So I pulled into the parking lot ... and the bird flew away.

It flew back across the field to the tree line, meeting up with another eagle, his mate? They circled around and flew off.

I waited. And waited.

Ten minutes later it came back. And I was ready. NOT! I had the camera set on the wrong f-stop, so the exposure times were too long. And I got blurry pictures. D'oh!

I hate when that happens.

*****

These posts are becoming much to frequent ...

(A slightly better shot can be found here.)

Still Twitchin' 

In my Twitchy post I wrote, 

"There were also red crossbills in the area. So Steve and I headed off to find them.

In this endeavor we were not successful."

Well if at first ...

My friend Greg had never seen either crossbill species, so I wandered up to the so called "North Shore" once again to meet up with him, and we started searching.

First up we found the red, when a birder named Peter who we met in the parking lot that morning called to say he had them just down the street form us. We arrived to find a pair, male and female, eating pine seeds and avoiding the sunlight (making for difficult photo ops).

The white-winged were not there this week, so we headed off to look elsewhere.

In this endeavor we were successful. Seeing two and perhaps as many as five flitting amongst the tree limbs.

It was actually a rather pleasant day out, colder but not as windy, and sunny.

Maybe I'll go back next week to look for the blue ones ...

*****

For those keeping score at home I'm now up to 71 species (times twelve will give me 852, a North American record me thinks ;-).