Archive for December, 2011
Vienna at New Year’s
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After an evening of fireworks and debauchery–I mean fun.
Christmas Bird Count 2012
Posted by: | CommentsDave’s handy West Essex Birders site has its own taxonomy for the quality of a birding day, ranging from “outrageous” (positively so) to “dud.”
Our morning wasn’t exactly a dud, but I can’t say that we were subjected to all that many interruptions of a feathered kind, either, as Alison and I birded Verona and Hilltop Parks.
We did come up with 21 species, none of them rare or otherwise notable to anyone who can’t appreciate a Great Blue Heron standing motionless in the shade, a Red-tailed Hawk being blown overhead like a huge rusty leaf, or a curious White-throated Sparrow emerging, silent for once, from the brush to check us out.
We’ve had lots of good CBCs together now over the years. Wonder where next December will find us birding!
And Another Errant Tyrannid…
Posted by: | Comments…this time an Ash-throated Flycatcher in Monmouth Co. I’d chased this species so many times in the state that I had nearly given up on it, but there it was, at last, picking insects from the cold ground and bright orange fruits from the Chinese bittersweet, which it shared with half a dozen Eastern Bluebirds and, uneasily, a Northern Mockingbird.
Nice way to end the year. Merry Christmas!
A Wandering Tyrant
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This Western Kingbird has been installed near Sandy Hook for several days now. It made me wait this noon, not flying in until I’d nearly given up, but then joined a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds plucking fruit from some berry-laden vines.
A pretty bird, and likely my last of the year for New Jersey.
