Bird Portraits in Color Plate 17

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 16

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 15

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 14

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 13

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 12

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 11

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 10

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 9

My nephew, Jack, is watching me post these paintings.

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 8

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 7

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 6

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 5

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 4

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 3

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 2

Bird Portraits in Color Plate 1

Test Post of Google Map

View Larger Map

Favorite Bird

lack Skimmer is mine. Here is a bird that's got it all: Gross manifestations of evolutionary biology, plumage at once striking and understated, sleekness of form, and grace of flight. It sleeps like a passed out spring breaker after 15 pina coladas, five bodyshots and a bong session.

Memorial Day Report - Part I: Exodus

t's a bit tardy, but when the reporter and the editor are the same guy in different hats, that's what you get. That's rustic.

It was a nifty, long weekend in Central New York, a part of the country I haven't visited since I was eight years old. Cooperstown, NY has always been a destination on my list. This village on the shores of Otsego Lake is home to the Baseball Hall of Fame and takes its name from the father of James Fenimore Cooper, the noted American fabulist behind the Leatherstocking Tales and Last of the Mohicans. Cooper's novels are set in this part of New York's middle tier, and Otsego is the model for his fictive "Glimmerglass."

As luck, and her parents' insurance policy, would have it, the GF did all the driving to Cooperstown, ably piloting our borrowed Acura north with an even hand and a mostly even head. As navigator, I was freed up to enjoy 200 miles of whiplash birding as the interstate-scapes of Northern Jersey, the winding blue highways of the Catskills and the rolling agricultural straightaways of New York's Central Valley rolled by under a bright sun.

Turkey Vultures rocked overhead throughout the drive, scouting out roadkill. Perched Kestrels watched the holiday traffic from phone lines. And a Cooper's Hawk was unceremoniously chased out of Roscoe, NY by a mob of Starlings and Grackles. A Common Raven sat in a farmhouse lawn outside Delhi, NY, and Chipping Sparrows tittered at my technique while I peed over a guardrail just south of Oneonta (at least I hope it was my technique). Finally, in the irony department: Bank Swallows over a barn in Otsego County, and Barn Swallows over a bank in Delaware County (a pond edge, not an S&L).

Tomorrow... Cooperstown, Baseball, Mascot Birds, Thoughts on B&Bs, etc.

Dickcissel or Dick Sisler? Both, Baby!

ne is a sparrow-like prairie bird, the other is closely associated with Cardinals and preferred a highly specialized habitat consisting of grassy fields in urban areas. Though the Dickcissel is declining, Dick Sisler is extinct, having expired in Nashville in 1998.

For more of this silly wordplay, check this old thread from the message boards at America's finest formerly-broadcast-but-now-internet-streamed radio station.

Anyway, I'm off to Cooperstown for the long weekend, where both birds can be experienced in one form or another in close proximity to Baltimore Orioles. I intend to take in all of the Baseball Hall of Fame that I can, and hopefully squeeze in as much birding as possible in the vicinity of Lake Otsego (James Fenimore Cooper's "Glimmerglass").

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. All three of you.

Weekend Roundup

riday was my first trip ever to Braddock (North Hudson) Park in North Bergen and it lived up to the hype I'd heard from other Hudson County birders. What it lacks in shorebird opportunities, it more than makes up for in arboreal habitat, with extensive trails through a mature deciduous forest with a continuum of understory ranging from tangled thicket to damp, muddy openings. There's also a large pond with a wooded central island and several acres of old-growth-over-grass parkland.

Temperatures were a bit on the cool side, and I experienced numbness in my fingers on a few extended viewings, but it was well worth it. Lots of warbler variety: Life-list Wilson's (yeah, I'm a n00b), Chestnut-sided, Blackpoll, Yellow, Yellow-rumped, Yellowthroat, Black-and-white, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Ovenbird, Redstart and Magnolia. Warbling and Red-eyed Vireo were also about, as were Hermit Thrush and Veery. Over the pond, Barn and Northern Rough-winged Swallows were swooping in big numbers -- 30+ of each -- and pausing occasionally to perch on the coping for nice, clear looks.

Saturday, I hopped the train to Liberty State Park to track down some shorebirds that had been mentioned on the Jersey Birds list as having shown up in the marsh and mudflats: Dunlin, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Black-bellied Plover and Short-billed Dowitcher. I was able to spot a half-dozen each of Dunlin and Dows, and 10-12 Semipalmated Sandpipers, but the only plover around were Semipalmated. Singletons of Glossy Ibis and Yellow-crowned Night Heron livened things up a bit. The big treat was on the way in though, as several Grasshopper Sparrows were buzzing on the fenceline.

Sunday I managed only a quick trip to LSP, with little to report from the scrape and mudflats except a Northern Waterthrush, finally. First of year after four weeks of trying.

I and the Bird Is the Emperor of Ice Cream

he 49th installment of I and the Bird is being hosted -- in verse -- by Dave Bonta at Via Negativa. A more handsome, better written, and wider-ranging blog you will seldom see. Hie thee thither forthwith and dally.

Time's Fun When You're Having Flies

ust a couple new arrivals at Liberty State Park this morning for me, and both Flycatchers: Willow and Eastern Wood Pewee.

Other good showings were made by a pair of Yellow Warblers pulling high Gs in barrel rolls around and through a stand of birch, Scarlet Tanager preening in a cottonwood, a Spotted Sandpiper picking and bobbing through the peat in the Grove of Remembrance, and a hair-ruffling blast of jetwash from a near collision with a Northern Flicker as I rounded a blind corner on the IC trail.

Also, a first-ever Hoboken bird on a smoke break at work: Male Common Yellowthroat singing in an apple tree in front of the downtown post office.

Is the AGW Science Settled?

eems that the scriptural literalists disagree. Which repugnant, god-bothering draft animal to hitch one's wagon to -- the monotonous plantation pedant or the grinning Okie troll?

For now, I'm firmly in the skeptical camp, and here's why: Some of the most committed, serious scientific advocates of human agency in global warming sum up the research as follows:

"Despite current uncertainties, it nonetheless remains a widespread view among paleoclimate researchers that late 20th century hemispheric-scale warmth is anomalous in a long-term (at least millennial) context, and that anthropogenic factors likely play an important role in explaining the anomalous recent warmth."

Sentence-length distillations of settled science don't require more qualifications than the last five seconds of a prescription drug commercial. There are no "current uncertainties" that humans are possessed of a pancreas; it is not a "widespread view" among medical researchers that the pancreas excretes insulin; it is not "likely" that insulin metabolizes sugar; and a pancreas that fails to excrete insulin is not a "factor likely playing an important role in explaining" diabetes.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

his was an odd weekend for me, as I only went to Bayonne, and only made one trip. I wasn't in the WSB, since I'm still a bit of a novice (started spring 2005) and my friggin' shin splints were killing me. I made it to Liberty State Park this evening for a few hours as well.

Saturday at Bayonne wasn't too bad. Not the big Wood Warbler concentration of Friday, but still good -- if typical -- variety: Redstart, Magnolia, Common Yellowthroat, Black-and-white and Ovenbird. Not much to listen to, as only the Ovens were in throat. Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Red-eyed Vireo were firsts of the year for me, and Blue-headed Vireo was also around. Veery and Robin only among the thrushes, no singing Woods like the day before.

The mudflats are starting to show more peeps, with ample Least and Spotted Sandpipers to go along with a couple Greater Yellowlegs. Semipalmated Plovers were new for the year as well, darting around the Great Black-backed Gull that's still working to pick clean his Channel Cat (he drags it into the tidal stream when he's done, and knows exactly where to retrieve it when he gets a hankering for rotten fish).

This evening at LSP was very quiet, with only Red-winged Blackbirds and a couple of Baltimore Orioles violating radio silence with any consistency. Yellow Warblers, maybe five or six, were the busiest warblers, followed by Yellow-rumped. These were joined by pairs of Black-and-white and Common Yellowthroat. A single Northern Parula added a bit of spice, allowing nice views from four feet as he picked through some mulberry on the landward edge of the Interpretive Center woods before moving off into the floppy, concealing leaves of a cottonwood.

I've got some more involved articles in the works on the politics of bird conservation from a libertarian perspective, hoping to get something posted that I'd be willing to submit for I and the Bird. With links and stuff, and without ham-fisted attempts to come up with fresh ways of saying, "Then I saw a Redstart!" or "I went to Bayonne this morning." You know: content.

Bonanza!

ou never know how a birding hike is going to turn out. Woke up at 5:15 this morning to the sound of thunder and heavy rain beating on the roof and thought, "Shit." But the downpour had already diminished to a patter by the time I was clean and dressed, and the weather guy said the t-storms would be intermittent and clearing by mid-morning, so I decided that I'd take the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail down to Bayonne and see what might be out despite the weather.

The patter petered to a spritz, and then cleared out completely before my train left Hoboken, and though overcast, the light was going to be sufficient for my purposes.

And am I ever glad I gave it a shot, as Gregg Park was avian bedlam. The south end of the escarpment -- always good for a few Wood Warblers -- yielded no fewer than ten species of bright mites, all within the terminal 500 square feet: Black-and-white, Ovenbird, Common Yellowthroat, Black-throated Blue, Blackpoll, Redstart, Magnolia, Black-throated Green, Yellow-rumped and Northern Parula. Baltimore and Orchard Orioles, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Eastern Kingbird and White-throated Sparrow were also milling in the same space. I had to take a break at one point because it was such absolute psychedelic chaos -- focus on that flash of yellow, and -- zip! -- there goes a blur of orange through your sight line. Turn for that, and blue blazes in your peripheral vision. I nearly got whiplash.

A host of thrushes as well: One tableau contained Hermit, Wood and Veery (Ovenbird, too) all sharing one little hollowing in the trees. Veery was a first for me in the Garden State.

All tallied, I turned up over 50 species in two hours and ten minutes, scarcely covered three quarters of a mile, and the only raindrops that hit me were the occasional ones shaken down by squirrels.

New Arrivals at Bayonne Parks

ow that's a bit more like it. Wood Thrush was filling the escarpment with song, though I only spotted two (actually, they were "spotted" before I came along, har.). A first-of-year Scarlet Tanager was hopping branch to branch in the top of a White Oak as well. And a pair of Baltimore Orioles were located at the far (south) end of the line, as a Green Heron was prowling the banks of the pond. A Northern Flicker was raising hella racket by drumming on the top of a streetlight.

Also saw Common Yellowthroat, Redstart, and Black-throated Blue Warbler. Then, my stumbling approach saved an Ovenbird from a feral cat, which glared at me from a rock after I spooked him from his stalk.

The mudflat held Spotted and (again) Solitary Sandpipers, a Great Egret, and the usual assortment of larids.

Usually choppy, Newark Bay was still and glasslike this morning. A persistent, light mist obscured three Common Loons a bit, but they along with several Double-crested Cormorant, a pair of Gadwall, Canada Geese with goslings, and a pair of Mallards were still easy to spot without the usual roiling on the bay's surface.

Much better than yesterday, and my leg wasn't nearly as bothersome.

Bayonne Dawn

morning train ride to Bayonne to check out the twin parks this morning (despite some nagging shin splints) yielded very few warblers, just a couple Black-and-whites and a solitary Ovenbird. I heard but did not see Warbling Vireo and Black-throated Blue Warbler. The Eastern Kingbird I've spied in the willows and birches overhanging the pond was back, and did a little hunting just over the water's surface before returning to his perch to sing. This also marked my first walk since mid-April without White-throated Sparrow.

The boardwalk was interesting, though, with Least and Spotted Sandpipers, a Great Egret, Gadwall, and three Great Black-backed Gulls tearing up a washed up Channel Cat. Also dipping around the mudflat was a Solitary Sandpiper, which caused a doubletake. This was an odd setting for this bird in my experience, but green grass is now showing in the middle of the flats and may have attracted the puddle-picker to the area. Kingfisher wasn't around, and no Yellowlegs either.

No Pheasants or Warblers in the scrub meadow, so I packed up and headed for work.

Another Ivory-billed Woodpecker Anecdote

ia Scott's Lovely, Dark and Deep comes welcome word of Albany Times Union birding blogger Rich Guthrie's sighting of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker while on a hunt for it with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology team.

Guthrie has a full accounting on his blog, and will be relating the story in greater detail on the Albany NPR affiliate, WAMC, tomorrow (Wednesday) at 2:00 p.m. EDT. If you're not in their broadcast area, there is a live stream available at the link above.

LSP Morning Mile

arbling Vireo, picked out with the assistance of Vince K., was the morning highlight at LSP -- though he couldn't turn up his White-eyed Vireo when we went back so I could get it.

Others noted were: Baltimore Oriole (3), Eastern Kingbird (1), Towhee (3), Black-crowned Night Heron (2), Downy Woodpecker (3), Redstart (2), Ovenbird (1), Yellow Warbler (3).

White-throated Sparrow is finally thinning out, and Catbirds have taken over their role as distracting pathside rummagers.

Outside Interests

et's take a look at what kinds of non-birding things birding bloggers are linking to on their sidebars, shall we?

Short answer: Not a whole hell of a lot. Very few avibloggers link to anything that's not related to feathered pursuits: Other birding sites, precision optics, environmental organizations and causes, parks, natural science sites...

Lovely, Dark and Deep has a non-birding section: Daily Kos and Wonkette are leftist political blogs, as is the local Democracy in Albany, but more subtly so. SPQR is about "Baseball, Birds, Books, Classical Civilization, Movies, Music and Video Games…" Does that count as non-birding? Horny Gandhi is a humor blog.

Birdchaser's got a "Friends" section with some non-birding stuff: Boneyard Media is a pretty cool and nostalgic music blog (the Dictators! Hadn't thought about Big Dick Manitoba in years) -- I subscribed to the feed. A pair of epicurean blogs -- Extra MSG about Portland, OR and Dallas Food about, well. The Underview is radical, hard left political bombast, and In Media Res is thoughtful, progressive, Christian, political philosophy (it was already in my RSS reader). And finally, a pair of personal, family-oriented blogs: Chef Messy and Eva Calidris Bailey.

Laura Erickson wants to be on the Colbert Report.

Those are the only ones from my blogroll that have anything. I got nothing.

Birding Bayonne

ayonne's Rutkowski Park and Hudson County's Gregg Park are contiguous parcels fronting on a three-quarter-mile stretch of Newark Bay. Though they comprise a relatively small area, the habitats present are tremendously diverse.

Gregg Park's upper level is traditional, urban parkland -- widely spaced deciduous growth sans understory (home to a variety of Woodpeckers and the hunting purview of at least one Merlin, which I watched pursue and snatch a Downy last week). It's lower level is level athletic field stretching westward to a promenade along the bay and encompassing a small grass-edged pond.

Separating the two levels is a steeply graded, woody escarpment that is a Warbler and Vireo bonanza (Black-throated Blue, Black-and-White, Ovenbird, Redstart, Yellowthroat, Yellow-rumped, Magnolia and even a Cerulean Warbler on Saturday 5/5, with Blue-headed, Warbling and White-eyed Vireo also in evidence). It offers easy views of tree-top birds when you walk the upper path, and the upslope facing the lower path steals depth from the understory for good views of ground-feeders and tangle-hoppers like Thrasher, Towhee, Common Yellowthroat, Thrushes, Ovenbird and Catbird.

Rutkowski Park begins with a quarter-mile boardwalk that traverses a small lagoon and a three-acre mudflat/tidal stream/tidal pool (depending on the tide). This has yielded Egrets, Kingfisher, Gulls, Diving and Dabbling Ducks, Peeps, Greater Yellowlegs, and Herons. The boardwalk exits onto a sandy beach on Newark Bay (Double-crested Cormorant and Spotted Sandpiper in May; Great Blue Heron, Red-breasted Merganser, Bufflehead, Greater Scaup, and Red-throated Loon in April) that gives access to a brushy meadow with six well spaced pines (Palm and Pine Warblers in April; Kingbird, Phoebe, and several varieties of Sparrow now) and a scrubby edge where I saw Ring-necked Pheasant in a Saturday morning mist.

Oddly, despite this concentrated variety of birding vistas (I've had 50+ species on two occasions in less than three hours), these two parks are sparsely birded compared to North Hudson County Park in West Bergen, and Jersey City's Liberty State Park and Lincoln Park West. Two regular Hudson County contributors to the indispensable Jersey Birds listserv -- one of whom lives in Bayonne -- never seem to file reports from these areas.

Other advantages are a good proximity to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail stop at 45th Street, and a pleasant, old-style New Jersey neighborhood surrounding the landward side of the parks (full of House Finch). It only takes five minutes to give the Great and Snowy Egrets a moment of privacy and grab a cup of coffee from a bodega, or a slice of great pizza from Johnny's on Avenue C (try that in Wisconsin or Southeast Ohio!). Give it a try if you're in the neighborhood.

A Word on the Artwork

ll the artwork on this site, save for portions of the banner and the ubiquitous parasitic doohickeys, is the work of John James Audubon. You may have heard of him. I presume it to be in the public domain, copyright notices on the Musee de la Civilisation site I link in my Resources list notwithstanding.

I won't be posting photographs here, as I am not a photographer -- amateur or otherwise -- and operate this weblog as a writing exercise and an opportunity to hone my dreadful design skills.

Ample, superior bird photography is available elsewhere on the web. I trust that those with sufficient interest in the subject of New Jersey birding to pass through this unswept corner of the Internet know what a Northern Parula looks like without a hackneyed shutter job accompanying my tortured prose.

Marlboro Man

like cigarettes. I'm a smoker; not a particularly heavy smoker -- about 15 nails a day -- but a smoker just the same. I derive great pleasure from tobacco, which I find to be mentally stimulating and physically relaxing at once.

I am considerate of others in my indulgence: I don't ask to smoke in non-smokers' homes or cars, nor do I exhale my fumes in the direction of others. I don't cast my butts about carelessly. I wash my hands after a cigarette and I am one of the world's leading individual consumers of Febreze. I oppose indoor smoking bans, but I honor them when they are imposed, as they have been in my adoptive home of New Jersey, neighboring New York, and most recently, my home state of Ohio.

Because of my judicious and courteous tobacco practices, I feel justified in giving no quarter to busybodies. Any and all unsolicited advice on the health effects of my legal, adult behavior from strangers is met with the ill humor and insult it rates. I've reduced two grossly obese women to tears, tainted the lexicons of ill-reared children with the imprecations of longshoremen and soldiers, issued Blackwellian sartorial critiques, and mocked the belief structure of a hectoring Scientologist. And I'm likely not done yet.

Anyway, I sometimes smoke when I'm out birding, though almost never in the company of others. I always select my site, light up, extinguish, and pocket my ends with due diligence to the prevention of litter and fire. I never treat myself near dry brush, grass, or wood, nor smoke unsheltered from high wind that can carry off a spark. I snuff 'em in water if it's around, others are rubbed in dewy grass, or ground on the sole of my boot if necessary.

I have never observed any repellent effect on my subjects. If anything, they seem to sense my preoccupation and appear when I can't deploy my bins, just as they uncannily detect opportunities for back-lighting and interpose themselves with devilish glee precisely between the sun and my eyes.

All this to bring up the fact that I encountered another birder in LSP today, a Brit whom I've seen a time or two else, and I'll be damned if he didn't fire up a heater!

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, brother. Solidarity.

In actual birding news: Nada nueva on the warbler front, but Eastern Kingbird has made the scene.

It's been a little sparse for a couple days. LSP's got a bad feral cat problem, and they've got keen instincts for the best spots in the area -- two on the IC path today, and a third in the wood-fenced marsh in the center of the park.

(Good) Lights, (No) Camera, (Passerine) Action!

rairie Warbler and Common Yellowthroat were ready for their closeups today at LSP, both taking star turns from 25-30 feet along the IC trail. Solitary Sandpiper -- thoroughly typecast -- lived up to his billing as a desperate loner, dipping in a puddle near the IC parking lot. Ovenbird, along with Carolina and Marsh Wren were, regrettably, only available for voiceovers. As expected, the comedy team of Canada Goose and Brant literally chewed the scenery.

Yellow-rumped (10) and Black-and-white Warblers (8) answered the casting call in droves, as did White-throated (50), White-crowned (30) and Chipping Sparrows (50+). Song, Savannah, Swamp and Field Sparrow made cameos, but Vesper and Lincoln's were not on set. Redstarts continued to steal scenes in supporting roles, as did Northern Waterthrushes, Blue-headed Vireos, and Magnolia Warblers. Towhee, Catbird, and Brown Thrasher were available for crowd scenes, and rounded out the cast of thousands.

Two thumbs up.

Back with an evening report soon enough.

PM Update: Not much to add, I'm afraid. Scared up three Wilson's Snipe on my way out at sunset, trying somewhat laughably to pass themselves off in the middle of the grassy parkland as -- what, guys? -- golf divots?