Mute Swan

Rainy days always seem to bring surprises to Lake Nelson. Today, we glanced out the window and saw a large swan that we later identified as a mute swan. He has been swimming by for a few hours now and got close enough for us to get some photos. He makes the geese look tiny.

Chickadee

The Geek Squad

There have been groups of male mallards with no females swimming around the lake for a few weeks. Since its duck mating season, and these males have no females with them, Mike calls them the Geek Squad.

Canada Geese Babies

We've been waiting SOOOOO long, all winter in fact for the first goslings. They're here and they're cute. A short video is at http://www.new-jersey-birds.com/Goslings.mov.

Great Egret in a tree

Here's a photo of a white heron, also know as the Great Egret.

Common Loon

Yesterday, Amazon delivered a new bird book to us: Birds of New Jersey. Looking through the waterfowl pages, we decided that we hoped to see a loon someday.

This morning, an odd looking, large duck landed on the lake. Chris got the binoculars and what do you know, it was a loon. How lucky is that? Okay, it's a common loon, and our daughter Karen makes fun of us because we think the common merganser and common goldeneye are rare birds. Well, we've never seen a loon before, common or not, so we took a few photos. This is the best, but it's a grey bird on a grey lake and a grey day.

Goldfinch

Here are some photos of the American Goldfinch, the State Bird of New Jersey. Mike took about 200 Goldfinch pictures while Chris was in the hot tub. Here are the best three pictures of Goldfinches.

Male Hairy Woodpecker

Will we ever get tired of taking pictures of the Hairy Woodpecker?

Two Downy Woodpeckers at the suet feeder

Great Blue Heron

Here is our first photo of the Great Blue Heron. He's at least 3 times the size of the night heron, so we hope to get better pictures some day.

Two Black-Crowned Night Herons

We were out on the deck at dusk and noticed the Black-crowned Night Heron staring at us. We took a few photos and then a different heron, possibly its mate, flew out of the tree. It's hard to tell, but we hope there is a heron nest in the tree. These photos of the night heron were taken about ten minutes apart. We like birds that stay still. (He did move his foot a little.)

Belted Kingfisher

This belted kingfisher is one of our favorites. He looks like a cartoon character.

Starling

A pair of starlings has taken over the birdhouse, evicting the tufted titmouse. Over the course of two days, they took out all of the wood shavings that came with the birdhouse and replaced them with twigs, grass and dried leaves. They like to rearrange their new home and will often remove a recent addition.

Wood Duck in a Tree

We were happy to see a pair of wood ducks back on the lake this morning. Here's a picture of the male on the lake. They flew off into a tree. We took an early morning walk and got this photo of the female about 50 feet high.

Wild Turkeys

We went for a walk this morning. We brought the camera along in case we found where the Wood Ducks had flown to. We saw a group of Wild Turkeys in the side yard of a house and started taking a few pictures. The owner spotted us and invited us into the backyard for a better look. They were a nice couple who seemed to appreciate wildlife as much we do.

Cardinal on a branch

Magnolia Warbler, (spring male)

This was our new discovery for today: the Magnolia Warbler. Mike noticed it from inside the house, and since the day turned out nicer than expected, we had plenty of time outside trying to identify our new friend. Mike has heard Chris imitating a catchy song that she's heard these last few mornings that sounds like wee-did-a-wee-did-a-wee-did-a-we. When we used the field guide trying to identify this bird, it described its song as such and the picture matched up well too, so we were very excited to put two and two together. Maybe now Chris can stop repeating the song since the bird does it better.

Black-crowned Night Heron

The black-crowned night heron has been showing himself for the past few days. He roosts in an evergreen tree all day. At 7pm he leaves to go fishing. We see him return at 7am in the morning.

Northern Flickers Again

The two nortnern flickers came by near dusk today. They stayed for about 30 minutes and had a duel in two different trees.

Tufted Titmouse in his new house

We put up a woodpecker house, but a tufted titmouse moved in. It's okay with us.

Black-capped Chickadee

The chickadees have been around since we moved in, but they don't stay still so they are hard to photograph

Pine Warbler

Here is a male Pine Warbler

Hairy Woodpecker

Today was an interesting bird day. It rained really hard last night. Early this morning, there were quite a few fancy ducks in the lake. Mike spotted a female
Green Winged Teal but confused it for a female mallard. Next Chris spotted three female Hooded Mergansers and then Mike saw a male Green Winged Teal join the group. Chris then spotted four Wood Ducks. They must have taken refuge from the storm at Lake Nelson during the night. It was too grey to get any good photos so we just enjoyed the visitors.

Much later in the day, it cleared up and we got a good photo of a male Hairy Woodpecker at the suet feeder. For a while, it got warm enough for some turtles to come out and sun themselves on a tree that fell into the lake in a recent storm. The turtles jumped in the water when we got close, but they don't seem to mind sharing the log with the geese.

Northern Flicker Dance

Here is a video of the Northern Flicker courtship dance. Mike posted it two ways. A high quality video uses an active-x control next and the regular Blogger video with a flash player below. The blogger should work on more computers, but the quality isn't as good. If all else fails, the URL of the higher quality video is http://images.new-jersey-birds.com/Flickers.avi

Northern Flickers Dance (Higher Quality)

Double-crested Cormorant

Well, I'm sure that Mike thought I was crazy the other day when I told him that there was a Shrek cormorant on the lake. Now I have proof!

We never saw anything like this last summer, so I guess those binoculars were a good investment. I'm sort of guessing about the ID. Maybe it's just a Great Cormorant whose hair is blowing in the wind? Doesn't matter to me though; whatever kind it is I think it's funny looking and adorable.

Northern Flickers

Aren't these some spectacular birds!

I was getting mundane chores done at home today, but everything came to a complete halt when in my peripheral vision I spotted some commotion in the yard. At first I said out loud, Awesome! Thankfully I then said, Get the camera, idiot.

It's possible there were three, two males and a female. This one on the ground appears to me to be a female because it is lacking the black line off the base of the bill, and the pair in the tree may be both males since they have that black line. I got a video also of the two in the tree (which Mike will have to post later), and I assumed it was a mating dance. Our field guide says when done between same sex it is for competition for territory or a mate. Leave a comment please if you can help with the identification.

Red Winged Blackbird

We have had many blackbirds come by, but just a few red-winged blackbirds. Here is the best shot. Until we started phographing, we never realized they also had a white stripe below the red one.

First Cormorant

The cormorants were the first diving birds we saw in the summer when we moved in. We haven't seen any since winter. Two returned today. We'll get better pictures someday, but this is our first.

Downy Woodpecker

A female downy woodpecker advertising the "Birds Choice" suet feeder. If you want to attract woodpeckers, you should get a suet feeder with a tail prop. To complete the ad, we got ours at Wild Bird Country 1199 Amboy Avenue, Edison, NJ 08837-2552 Phone: (732) 549-5250. Say "hi" to Colleen while you are there.

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard

This pair has been hanging around for two weeks, Chris takes pictures of the fancy ducks. Mike gets the regular ones.