Herons up close and personal

Once in a while, as you drive or walk past a lake, river, or some marsh, you might notice a tall gray/blue bird standing on the bank looking at the water.  That's a Great Blue Heron, one of the most graceful birds in our area. For a large bird, they are surprisingly common and easy to spot. However, they are still wild and it's hard to approach them. By luck or some trick of wind, I've managed to get close to a few in the hundred times that I've seen them. And - what do you know - I have some pictures to prove it!









The one below is also a Great Blue Heron, but a juvenile.



As long as we are on the subject of herons, there are two other types of them in our area that most people never see. That's because they are nocturnal, and mostly active only around sunrise or sunset. They are not as tall and graceful, but because it's still very hard to get their close-up shots, I thought I'd post them here.

This is a Yellow-crowned Night Heron. I came across it last year in a Westchester park. It was almost tame and let me get pretty close.


This is the same type of bird but a juvenile. This (and all other pictures below) were taken from behind a bird blind in Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.





Taking the cuteness factor down one level more, this is a Black-crowned Night Heron:

And this is a juvenile:

Summer forest

A day's walk in the woods always yields a lot of good photos. Even if it's the middle of July, the sweat is dripping from your eyebrows, and every mosquito in the forest seems to aim at your right eye. This collection is Stirling Forest park, Meadowlands, Bull's Island, Lord Stirling park, and Great Swamp park.

This guy shadowed me for about fifty yards, moving in the brush next to the trail I was following, without detecting my presence in any way. I didn't want to startle him (we all know what would happen then!), so I simply outpaced him.

If you look closely, you can see my reflection in this frog's eye...

More forest frogs, all different ones:

 

Life after people

 Have you ever watched the History Channel show "Life after People"? It shows how Nature would overtake all the remnants of civilization if humans suddenly disappeared. Working in Manhattan, that scenario seems reliably remote, but in fact, several episodes of that show were filmed in New York City. Not in Manhattan itself, but on small islands in East River and New York Harbor.

One day this July, we took a river cruise that took us to some of these islands. The skies looked suitably apocalyptic:


After we slowly paddled under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and turned around, an island came into view, and you could tell something wasn't right with the buildings there:


It was the Swinburne Island, and it was virtually covered by hundreds and hundreds of cormorants.


Apparently, this set of buildings used to be a quarantine hospital and later a marine training station, but for the past several decades it's been abandoned.


The island is now managed as part of a national park that spans between Jamaica Bay (JFK airport) and Sandy Hook NJ. I don't know about you, but seeing it colonized by the birds like this is kind of creepy to me.


We also visited a sister island called Hoffman Island. That one doesn't have any buildings, but it has an abandoned pier. And another set of several hundred cormorants.





While we were at it, we also took a swing around one of the lighthouses in the area. The light-keeper was in. How can you tell?

See a bluebird catch a fly

Now you see it - now you don't:







I like the middle picture - it looks funny...

How many breeds of birds fit on a tree?

There are two types of birdwatching. The classic one is where you go and seek out the birds. A much easier one is where you stay put and let the birds come to you. During a June trip to Lake Nockamixon, we parked ourselves near a tree with ripe berries, and for an hour successfully indulged in birdwatching type #2.

So how many breeds of birds fit on (and around) a single tree? I am going to count them:

1. Red-bellied Woodpecker


This one is also a red-bellied woodpecker, but it's a juvenile:


2. Baltimore Oriole:


3. Song sparrow:


4. Downy Woodpecker:


 5. American Goldfinch:


6. Eastern Kingbird (taking an insect to its nest):


Pair of kingbirds sitting on their nest:


7. Northern Cardinal:


8. Wood Duck:


9. American Coot:


10. Eastern Bluebird:


11: Killdeer:


12. Don't know what this one is, but it was there too:


Not bad for a single tree spot!