Juvenile Saw Whet Owl in NJ

The New Jersey birding listserv just reported a juvenile Saw whet owl at 'The Rips' off Cape May Point today. The bird was being harrassed by gulls and flew around the boat around 9:30 am. The species is not known as a breeder in south Jersey, but....

WOW!

Mystery nest

These photos were taken about two weeks ago. This bird is nesting in my neighbors’ small Japanese maple. The nest is only about 4 1/2 feet off the ground. Any takers on an ID?

The purple people eater survey

Remember to vote on my blog on what appears to be the imminent (dang another 10 point word in back to back posts...) return of Brett Favre in playing in purple for the Minnesota Vikings. Let me know whether you would be happy, sad or indifferent if Brett returns as a Viking.

Indigo bunting oasis!

If you were an Indigo Bunting where we you go in Summer? Unless your first answer was Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve in Chicago then you clearly don’t know the minds of Indigo Buntings. This diverse and sometimes rugged landscape includes dense woods of oak and pine, a generous number of ponds and cattail marshes, a prairie, a small waterfall, and an overlook of the Des Plaines River.

Honestly, prior to my arrival at Waterfall Glen I had no idea that my quick hike would result in my seeing somewhere in the 40-50 (at least) range of Indigo Buntings – most of them bright blue males. Don’t get me wrong I’m NOT complaining, it actually knocked my socks off. The whole park literally reverberated (10 point word?) with Indigo Buntings ALL over the place. At one point I could see 5 males singing from the tree tops at the same time – crazy. I also saw females and males building nests. It struck me as a little late, but the Chicago area may be a little later than NJ. I also saw other regulars of the forest and grasslands such as Flicker, Black bird, Gnatcatchers, Waxwings, Robins, Towhee etc.

The strangest part of the hike was seeing a Chickadee grab a MASSIVE caterpillar and munch it! This was the first time that I have seen a chickadee hunting and eating caterpillars and at first I was too stunned to take a picture. After a few seconds of watching with my mouth wide open I snapped a few pics but unfortunately the Chickadee had finished its meal – DAMN!

I would highly recommend checking out Water Glenn but do yourself a favor make SURE that you spray LOTS of bug spray. I was literally eaten alive by mosquitoes!

American Robin - Yummy!

Male Indigo Bunting - Posing

Male Indigo Bunting - Posing

Female Indigo Bunting building a nest. The nest was located in a tiny little bush at the edge of foot path - only about 2 feet off the ground.

Immature male Indigo bunting building a nest. When do these males get their full coloring? Is this a fledged male helping with a second brood - Any ideas?

Go chicken catcher go!

My little secret is that I LOVE America's got talent. I could stretch this and say he mentions birds so it applies to this blog, but truth be told it blew my hair back so I thought you might like it.

Favre in purple...really

I would never have thought that Brett would unretire once, never mind twice. The season with the Jets was fun to watch until the meltdown primarily due to Favre's shoulder injury combined with a POOR defensive showing. Now it looks like the rollercoaster is back on the tracks again and Favre will be signing with the Vikings VERY shortly. I'm amazed and astounded. Surely Favre knows that this will tarnish his reputation and I can only guess that his motivation is to stick it to Ted Thompson. It's been fun watching Favre, but these last few seasons of retirement, unretirement have made me think a little less of the guy. It turns out that Favre is like many other superstars and that he doesn’t necessarily think of the team first. I think his antics point to the fact that he is pretty self centered. We all like to stick our heroes on pedestals, but in the end they are just mere mortals with warts and all.

Mystery bird - Part 2

No one ID'ed the mystery bird on the first shot, so I thought I would post another pic. Any more takers??

Birding Chicago

It looks like I will be making another overnight trip to Chicago at the beginning of July. If anyone know of any good birding spots or better yet want to show me around, please let me know. I'll have at least an afternoon for a quick birding trip. During my previous stop over in Chicago I checked out Ned Brown State Forest and I'd like some suggestions on other sites in the Chicago area.

I love tree swallows: Part 2

A few more photos from my amazing Tree Swallows.

I love tree swallows: Part 1

I wanted to share my super cool neighbors that share my yard with me in Spring and Summer. The arrival of these flight masters signals the start of Spring to me!

Stop looking at my toes!

I'm hungry!

It looks like the first year bird is starting to get its blue coloring

Attack! These guys love zooming right up to your head.....

Chow time

Mystery bird - what is it?

I know what this is, but I'm not sure I would know if I just saw this picture. Do you know what this is?

Birding Ned Brown - Chicago

I made a quick stop in Chicago last week to visit with a potential client. I arrived mid day Tuesday and I decided to check out a local park – Ned Brown/ Busse Forest Nature Preserve. I did some research on Google and it looked like a great birding spot although I didn’t find any trip reviews online from either birders or bloggers. I decided it was worth checking out, even if it was a very brief stop in. The habitat is pretty impressive for birding with forest, grassland, lakes and marshland. What makes this park even more rewarding for birders is that they’ve cut the grass at the edges of the forest which makes it easy to scope the forest edges for birds. I spent most of my time on the water, walking along the edge of the lake. The habitat was awesome for warblers and I was literally surrounded by Yellow warblers. Getting a decent picture proofed to be nearly impossible, but I kept trying.

I also saw and heard several Willow flycatchers. Remarkably the birds were VERY similar to what I saw at Hoffman except for a lone Spotted Sandpiper. All in all, it was a quick but nice birding outing.

Spotted Sandpiper - terrible photo of a super cool looking bird......

Birding at Hoffman Park

Patrick was spot on when he commented that my next stop may be Hoffman Park in Union Township. I made a quick trip to Hoffman during the winter and I really like the habitat. Hoffman’s parking lot sits high above a sweeping meadow that transitions into forest habitat. Sunday had turned into a BEAUTIFUL day which is something pretty significant given the terrible overcast, cold and rainy weather that the North East has experienced this spring. As I made my way out of the parking lot I was alerted to a Willow Flycatcher. I scanned the hedgerow and saw a beautiful Brown Thrasher. The tone for an awesome birding stop had been set. Although I didn’t see anything majorly significant I saw a LOT of the ‘common’ birds. After leaving Hoffman I regretted not making a trip list as I saw a lot of nice birds at Hoffmann. The trip was quick but the outing to Voorhees and Hoffman was well worth it and I have a distinct feeling that Hoffman may become my ‘home’ stomping ground.

Tree Swallow

Male: Yellow Warbler

Male: Yellow Warbler

Female: Yellow Warbler

Finally a birding trip!

Birding has been pretty slow on my end and I haven’t had much to post about lately. I’m not sure if anyone still checks out my blog, but just in case I’m posting something about some birding I did over the weekend. I was determined to get out and check out some birds this weekend even though my wife was on call at the hospital. With my cell phone at the ready and instructions to check in before 9 am I headed out to a local state park (Voorhees) just after 5 am.
I’m embarrassed to admit that this is the first time I’ve been to Voorhees even though I live a stone’s throw away from it. I got some tips from a local birder and started on the Observatory road first. I found a great scenic spot and made my way down a trail. Although there were a lot of birds around me I couldn’t see many of them. I guess this is pretty much par for the course when birding in a forest environment. I did manage to see a couple of Warblers including Black throated blue and a nice female American redstart. I also saw several Wood thrushes chasing each other around while making a HUGE racket.

Next stop was the park itself and I walked along a grassy field at the edge of the forest. As I was walking I saw something reddish lying in the grass. My initial thought was a fox, but when I came closer I realized it was something even cuter.

After taking some pictures I left the fawn undistributed and moved on to some more birding. I managed to tick of some more thrushes: Louisiana Waterthrush, Hermit and Swainsons thrush. Also on the list were several woodpeckers including Hairy, Red bellied, Pileated and a Flicker busily excavating a nesting cavity.

The birding at Voorhees was very rewarding combined with the incredible beauty of the surroundings.

At around 8:30 I checked in with my wife and it looked like we were going to have a call free day. I was ready to try another park and I jumped in my car headed for an entirely different habitat - more to come>>>

Crow imitating owl

Early Sunday morning I woke up to a crow squawking outside our bedroom window. Sadly this isn't a rare occurrence and I was praying that the **^^%%%%**& crow would move on to another unsuspecting neighbors bedroom window. As I was laying there with the fog of sleep slowing lifting I started to notice that the crow was repeating certain calls. As I started listening more closely I realized that the crow was mimicking the call of a Barred Owl. At first I thought I was imagining it, but it kept doing it over and over. The crow wasn't doing the whole call, but rather it had broken the call into distinct pieces and it was repeating them.

After striking out on Google searches I posted my 'observation' to our local state listserv to see if anyone had heard of something similar and I pretty quickly got a reply which I'd like to share with you.

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"American Crows are documented to imitate Barred Owls. But I do not know of any records of them imitating any other owl species or raptor. The big unanswered question is: why do they do this? I have no idea. Maybe for one or more of the purported reasons why those other corvids, Blue Jays, mimic hawk vocalizations. This is an area of much speculation and hypothesis, but some have postulated that Blue Jays do this: 1) as a method of deceiving other species (to either claim/clear territory or perhaps to "panic" other birds off their nests); or 2) as a type of "contact call"; or 3) as "dumb mimicry"; i.e., they do it because they've heard the sound and they are able to repeat the sound (think for a minute about the sounds some 6th grade boys mimic). In other words, this remains a big area for continued study. Especially since corvids are so social and intelligent".

Mr. X

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Thanks so much. I wonder where this crow heard the Barred owl or whether it was mimicking another crow’s version of it ;-) This is a nice first for me and I’m glad to hear that I wasn’t imagining it!

Quintus,

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Quintus,

Barred Owl was a confirmed breeder not too far from you in northern-most Somerset County back during 1993-1997. At that time, they were making a slow comeback of sorts, and radiating out from the areas they'd been found in. Maybe a younger one, or a displaced one searching for new territory, was recently in your area? Although habitat loss due to development is a big challenge. Thanks again for your interesting post.

Mr. X

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So there you have it - crows imitate Barred owls! Has anyone else heard of this either first or second hand?