Photo of the Week

This is the flower of a Swamp Azalea, also known as Clammy Azalea (Rhododendron viscosum). Swamp Azalea is a wetland shrub in the eastern and southern United States. It is notable for its late blooming period. Unlike other azaleas, which bloom in May before they have fully leafed out, Swamp Azalea blooms in late June or July after its leaves are fully grown. The name "clammy" refers to the sticky hairs that line the outside of the tube formed by its petals. I took the photo above in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.

White-breasted Nuthatch

This White-breasted Nuthatch was scooting back and forth along the trees near Lord Stirling Park's west observation tower on Saturday. It was one of several that I could hear honking and hammering on nuts and seeds.

Eastern Bluebirds at Lord Stirling Park

As I stood on the west observation tower at Lord Stirling Park yesterday morning, I was surrounded by birds – White-throated and Song Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and White-breasted Nuthatches, among others. The ones that really caught my attention were a few Eastern Bluebirds that alternated between foraging in the field and perching in the trees and shrubs near the tower. The male above was perched in front of a bat box.

One of the trees had a limb broken off with a deep groove in what was left of it. I think that water must have collected inside the groove because the bluebirds kept disappearing into the groove and coming back out after a pause long enough to take a drink.

Scenes from the Great Swamp

Yesterday I was at the Great Swamp NWR. There was very little visible or audible bird activity while I was there. In fact, there were not even many waterfowl, which is what I had hoped I might see there. So instead of looking at birds, I found myself looking at reflections in the water.

Sparrows at Lord Stirling Park

Yesterday, I visited Lord Stirling Park in Somerset County in the hopes of finding some sparrows. The park has a mix of woodland and meadow habitats in addition to the swamp that the area is known for. I have had some luck with sparrows there in past autumns, such as the Lincoln's Sparrow I found in 2007.

The morning started out slow, with some flocks of White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos but not much else. As I continued around the trails, I found a few Eastern Bluebirds. One of the bluebirds flew up to a nesting box, clung to the front of the box, and stuck its head through the entrance hole as if it were feeding a nestling or checking out the cavity. Soon it was joined by a second bluebird, and both birds perched on top of the box. I am not sure exactly what it was doing. It seems too late for nestlings, so perhaps it found a source of invertebrates, maybe a spider web or a mass of insects seeking a sheltered place to spend the winter.

When I got to the farthest meadow, near the west observation platform, I finally found some bigger sparrow flocks, though most of the birds were either White-throated Sparrows or Dark-eyed Juncos. A few flocks included Swamp Sparrows and Song Sparrows. As I rounded the south end of the main pond on my way back to the parking lot, I enjoyed a nice view of a Fox Sparrow, a highlight on almost any birding trip.

Wildlife at Lord Stirling Park

On Saturday I was at Lord Stirling Park, which protects the western portion of the Great Swamp basin. (A National Wildlife Refuge protects the eastern portion.) Birds were mostly quiet, though a lot of the summer's breeders were in evidence. I saw a few immature birds following their parents around, with a highlight being two Empidonax flycatchers (most likely Willow Flycatchers given the location) traveling together. As I was crossing the dike between the impoundments at the entrance to the park, I saw a Black-crowned Night-Heron fly overhead (apparently unusual in Somerset County) and two Green Herons flying around the impoundment on the right. The latter two were making some odd noises, more high-pitched and sweeter sounding than I associate with that species.

I had hoped to see dragonflies around the ponds and on the trail along the Passaic River, which flows along the eastern border of the park, but they were a lot less abundant than I expected. There were a lot of Eastern Forktails, like the one above, and some common dragonflies like Slaty Skimmer and Twelve-spotted Skimmer.

This darner took a break from flying around. I think it is a Swamp Darner, but it is difficult to be certain because of the distance and backlighting.

Butterflies were also a bit sparse, but it was nice to see this Appalachian Brown.

Spotted Lady Beetles were crawling all over the emergent vegetation in one of the ponds.

I only saw this Southern Leopard Frog because it happened to cross the path in front of me as I was walking. If it had kept still, I probably would have missed it.

Birds from the Great Swamp

Yesterday I did some birding at the Great Swamp NWR. The woods were very quiet. Much of the ground was still covered in snow or ice, and the boardwalk trails were still icy for long stretches. The quiet was occasionally broken by the calls of Pileated Woodpeckers as they flew around and hammered against tree trunks. The birdiest spots were around the two blinds with birdfeeders. A mix of Tufted Titmice, Black-capped Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatches, and Dark-eyed Juncos took turns snatching seeds and carrying them away.

The far blind, known as the Friends Blind, looked out on some open water, which a moving stream managed to keep ice-free. The waterfowl numbers seemed low, but there was a nice collection of ducks. I saw my first Wood Ducks for the year and added a few waterbird species to my Morris County list. I enjoyed seeing Wood Ducks in their breeding plumage since those are some of the most beautiful ducks but can be easy to miss, even in the right habitat. Other waterfowl present included Ring-necked Duck, Hooded Merganser, Common Merganser, and Ruddy Duck. It is possible that waterbird numbers will increase there over the next few weeks as more of the ice melts.

You can see more of my photos from the woods at my Flickr account.

British Soldier Lichens

While I was at the Great Swamp on Saturday, I heard some insects singing in a clearing. I never did find the source of the sound, but while I was looking for the insects, I noticed some odd lichens along a log. Looking closer, I saw the red caps that marked them as British soldier lichens (Cladonia cristatella).

Despite their distinctive appearance, the lichens do not look like much from a distance. The stalks are very short, with even the tallest being shorter than than half of an inch high. That may be why I have missed these lichens in the past.

Species in genus Cladonia are cup lichens, which often grow in branching, bush-like shapes. Like other lichen, British Soldier Lichens are unions of an alga (Trebouxia erici) and a fungus (Cladonia cristatella), the latter of which provides the scientific name for the lichen. The alga photosynthesizes food, and the fungus provides structure. Lichens are very slow-growing organisms; this species only grows about two millimeters per year.

The red caps at the tops of the stalks are the fruiting bodies that produce spores for spreading the organism. A British solder lichen will produce its first spores after four years of growth. The red caps are also the reason for the lichen's common name as they are reminiscent of British army uniforms of the 18th and 19th centuries. Some guides suggest the name refers to "red hats" worn by British soldiers during the American Revolution, but it more likely refers to their red coats since soldiers of the period wore a variety of headgear, much of it not red.

Several other blogs and websites have interesting commentary on these lichens, including The Marvelous in Nature, Hiker's Notebook, and this site.

Birds from the Great Swamp

Yesterday I was at the Great Swamp NWR on a cool and blustery day. Despite the unfavorable weather for bird observation, a lot of people were on the boardwalk trails, most of them gathered in two tour groups. The wind kept much of the bird activity out of view, but there were still birds to be seen. Winter residents are arriving in good numbers now.

Around the parking lot, I saw many Palm Warblers and a handful of Eastern Bluebirds, three of which sat for portraits.

There were some sparrows along the trails – mainly White-throated Sparrows but also an especially ruddy Swamp Sparrow. One Yellow-rumped Warbler caught insects from the boardwalk railing and sat out long enough for some photos.

It showed off the reason for its name. In some of these photos, it almost appears that the warbler evolved its plumage to blend with boardwalk railings.

There were a lot of waterfowl flying around in the distance, but I couldn't see any in the water visible from any of the blinds. The Friends Blind (the one closest to Long Hill Road) is entirely screened by reeds and brush right now, so the stream normally visible from the blind is not visible at all.

Exploring the Passaic

The Passaic River in Lord Stirling Park, near Basking Ridge, NJ

Yesterday's Grist featured the first installment of a two-part essay on the Passaic, New Jersey's longest river, written by someone who grew up on the river's banks. Here is a taste:

The Passaic is many rivers: swift and clear in its upper stretch, sluggish and swampy in mid-section, a thundering cascade at Great Falls, brackish below the Dundee Dam, and so industrial in its final miles that New Jersey poet laureate William Carlos Williams declared it "the vilest swill hole."

The river rises in Mendham, an historic township in north central Jersey. It heads almost due south at first, then veers sharply north, then northeast, then due east and then south again, making two final northward loops before emptying into Newark Bay. This erratic path traces a sloppy, upside-down U that winds through, over, under, and around seven New Jersey counties, 45 of its cities and towns, three swamps, three dams, four meadows, four waterfalls, a pond, a lake, 49 bridges and seven highways, and past countless homes, parks, playing fields, parking lots, diners, junkyards, office buildings, shopping centers, gas stations, warehouses, and factories. The drive from Mendham to Newark is about 30 miles. The Passaic takes the long way around.

The Passaic's 90-mile journey can be divided into three long stretches. The Upper Passaic is a largely downhill romp through meadows and forest and along the southeastern edge of the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The Central Basin is the long, flat, flood-prone mid-section that flows north through an ancient lakebed. The Lower Valley, where I grew up, is a 35-mile-long corridor with sides that curl like plumped pillows as it sweeps down from the cliffs of Paterson to the sea level marshes of Newark.

In its convoluted journey from pristine headwaters to the superfund site at its mouth, the Passaic mirrors the triumphant and tragic relationship between nature and industry in America. The wildness and beauty that awed the first settlers some 400 years ago turned America into an industrial titan. Rivers like the Passaic powered the mills, farms, and factories that produced clothes, food, steel and electricity, a robust international trade, and a large and solid middle class. But along the way, the mighty frontier that helped forge American enterprise and character fell victim to an industrial fervor that seemed, at every turn, to sacrifice natural resources for financial gain.

Read the rest.

Great Swamp Herpefauna

I was at the Great Swamp NWR yesterday in search of early spring migratory birds. I saw my first returning Eastern Phoebe of spring migration. (I did see an overwintering phoebe during the C&O Canal Count in January). Waterfowl were in low numbers, but there was a diverse mix of species visible from the blinds. I enjoyed hearing a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks as well.

However, reptiles and amphibians were far more noticeable than birds. Lots of Spring Peepers were evident around the swamp. I saw none but heard their peeping calls. In addition to the peeping, I heard some rising trills that I could not quite place. It was similar to the call of Gray Treefrogs, except that the audio samples I have heard of that species are of trills on an even pitch rather than a rising one.  

Update: I now think that the trills were from New Jersey Chorus Frogs. Both New Jersey Chorus Frogs and the similar Upland Chorus Frogs occur in Morris County, but New Jersey Chorus Frog is more likely to be encountered in the Great Swamp according to the refuge's herp list.

Another frog species present was Wood Frog (one is shown above). These frogs were calling in groups in several shallow ponds along the boardwalk trails. Wood Frogs have already laid a lot of eggs, as evidenced from the many egg masses, but are still very actively courting and mating.

In addition to the frogs, many snakes were active. Most of the ones I saw were taking advantage of the warm day and sunning themselves. I saw two Garter Snakes, neither of which was in a good spot for me to photograph it. The Northern Water Snake below was both photogenic and cooperative, as it stayed in the same position despite much activity on the boardwalk nearby.

This snake was sunning on a branch over the pool where I photographed the Wood Frogs. Water snakes prey on frogs, among other things. As I photographed the snake and listened to the frogs, I was reminded of a series of photos taken by one of my Flickr contacts of a water snake eating a bullfrog. The rest of the series is in the same set.

A Wilderness Trail in the Great Swamp

Yesterday I was in a portion of the Great Swamp that I had not walked through before. I have probably been to Lord Stirling Park more than any other part of the swamp. Judging from reports  on JerseyBirds, most birders seem to frequent the areas around Pleasant Plains Road and the Long Hill Road boardwalk trails. More than half of the National Wildlife Refuge lies east of Long Hill Road and is designated as a "wilderness area." I am not sure that a refuge in the center of New Jersey is a good example of "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man," as described by the Wilderness Act; it certainly does not feel that way when the trailhead is surrounded by a housing development. Nonetheless, this area of the Great Swamp was the first refuge to be designated as a wilderness in 1968.

Wilderness as it may be, this trail was pretty quiet yesterday. The most activity I saw was from a single flock of sparrows. Most of these were Dark-eyed Juncos, with a healthy mix of White-throated Sparrows, Song Sparrows, and (best of all) a few American Tree Sparrows. Nearby was a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds. At a different point, there were a few Swamp Sparrows, and near the end of the walk a large flock of American Robins flew overhead. Other than that, there were few birds to be seen.

I suspect that this trail may be more productive during the breeding season, when some swamp specialties would be in the area. It may also be more productive when the water is not frozen. The trail passes through several areas that appear to be open or wooded swamp, which ought to host Wood Ducks and other waterfowl during the appropriate seasons. Despite the lack of birds, this less-traveled trail offered some solitude and beatiful scenery.

Lord Stirling Park and Great Swamp Hunting Dates

This post will be primarily of interest to Jersey birders. Great Swamp NWR and Lord Stirling Park usually have a series of closures throughout the fall. The closures are to keep other potential visitors safe while hunters cull some of the white-tailed deer that roam the adjacent preserves.

Unfortunately for birders, the dates and places of hunting closures, as well as regulations governing the season, can be confusing, even if they are readily findable. Since I was at Lord Stirling Park today, I am posting the list of closures for that site here. Hunting season has ended at Great Swamp NWR, but there are still some dates left at Lord Stirling Park for 2009.

I don't object to hunting on public lands, even in places where I like to visit. However, I wish information about when and where hunts are taking place were more readily available in a form more understandable to non-hunters. Since the state does not seem interested in communicating this to non-hunters, perhaps there is room for a birding or hiking organization to fill the gap.

Tasty Morsels

Since the weekend's blogging so far has been devoted to dead things and the birds that eat them, I decided to carry on the theme for another day. Someone on another site described me as morbid on Friday simply because I posted links to a leopard seal catching a pintail and this strange creation. To me, those are not morbid at all. Predation is an important part of the natural world, and the remains of dead animals can be interesting for a variety of reasons. Occasionally I find dead animals on my walks, and when I do, I usually try to figure out what they were and how they might have died.

Here a few images from dead things that I found recently. The first is a dragonfly at Buck Gardens in Far Hills, NJ. I am not sure how it ended up in the water, or why it stayed there for so long without something eating it. (The ponds are well-stocked with frogs and other potential dragonfly predators.) I am not entirely sure of the species, either. The best match I have found so far is Autumn Meadowhawk.

The thriving mosquito population in Lord Stirling Park made it very difficult to concentrate on warblers flitting in the treetops. One bird, at least, made itself easier to watch by lying in pieces on the ground.

It may not be entirely evident from this photo, but in the field I could recognize this as the wing of a Blue Jay. There does not seem to be much meat left on this wing; it has been picked clean except for bones and feathers. Of the predators likely to be in the park, Cooper's Hawk seems the most likely to have killed and plucked this jay. Sharp-shinned Hawks prefer smaller birds, and the other possible hawks prefer mammals, reptiles, or amphibians. Owls tend to swallow their prey whole rather than leave a mess like this. A mammalian predator is possible, but the spatial distribution of body parts suggested that they were torn off and dropped from high in a tree over the boardwalk.

There were other leftover body parts. Feathers were scattered here and there, and next to the boardwalk was the jay's head. Feathers were still stuck to the face and crown, but they had been ripped off the back of the head, so that the skull and spinal cord were visible.

Sadly, there seemed to be little left for a vulture to snack on.

Images from the Great Swamp

These are a few more images from Saturday at the Great Swamp. I took all of these along the boardwalk trail on Long Hill Road. Regular swamp visitors may recognize some of the locations.



The images are not in chronological order. And yes, I do seem to have a liking for leaning trees.

The expected breeding birds for the Great Swamp were present, and there was little sign of migration. This meant a lot of veeries and wood thrushes, and smaller number of various flycatchers, vireos, and warblers, plus a few cedar waxwings. There was at least one pair of scarlet tanagers, both of which were gracious enough to make an appearance. The avian highlight for me was a wood thrush that seemed to lack a tail. It must have had a narrow escape at some point. The tail will grow back the next time the bird molts.

Reptiles and amphibians were very active as well, but only the gray treefrog was in a good position for me to photograph it. Other herps included bullfrog, green frog, northern water snake, and black racer. There was also a spotted turtle (pointed out by other birders); I believe that was the first time I have seen one.

Gray Treefrog

This Gray Treefrog was perched on a railing near one of the blinds at Great Swamp NWR.

Front view:

How the Great Swamp Became a Wildlife Refuge

Great Swamp NWR is currently one of the top birding destinations in central New Jersey. Its borders contain the marshes, swamps, woodland, and meadows that the Passaic River as it winds its way through Morris and Somerset counties. I personally have seen 119 species of birds there; the refuge list stands at 244.

But the Great Swamp could have been an airport rather than a wildlife refuge, if the Port Authority had not met with resistance from the residents of surrounding towns.

The postwar years were an era of unprecedented ground travel, too. The Federal Highway Act of Dwight Eisenhower was finally funding plans for interstate highways that had been on the drawing boards for years.

Two of these in New Jersey were Routes 78 and 287.

They would intersect not far from the Great Swamp, making the new airport convenient for New Yorkers and Jerseyans, as well as people from eastern Pennsylvania. The Port Authority thought the swamp was perfect for other reasons, too.

It already was flat -- and sparsely populated. The small towns around it -- the Chathams, Bernards Township, Madison, Harding -- probably couldn't raise much political opposition and would welcome the influx of jobs and industry....

The late Helen Fenske, a self-described Green Village housewife, began to put together a coalition of fundraising volunteers to buy up the land and deed it to the U.S. Department of the Interior for a nature preserve. This was 1960, decades before the discovery that a rare salamander could stop a huge development in its tracks....

They enlisted the help of Marcellus Hartley Dodge and his wife, Geraldine, a legend among animal lovers. With Dodge startup money, wealth built from Remington firearms, the group began to purchase tracts of Great Swamp land. But they also raised money in small donations from regular people.

By 1960, they had 1,000 acres. By 1964, they had more than 3,000, which met federal requirements to create a wildlife refuge.

On May 29, 1964, the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge became the first federally designated wilderness area east of the Mississippi.

It is now difficult to picture that area with an airport in the middle of the swamp. I am certainly glad that plan did not come to fruition.

(link via)

A New Life Bird for the New Year

Rough-legged Hawk on Power Lines / Photo by John and Karen Hollingsworth (USFWS)

The Great Swamp in winter provides opportunities to see some unusual birds, if you know where to look for them. This afternoon, my mother, sister, and I set out to find some of the more interesting species reported recently.

Our first stop was the wildlife center on Long Hill Road. We quickly encountered a northern shrike, perched high in a tree above the first of the blinds along the boardwalk. I would have passed it off as just another gray bird on a gray day, except that it struck fear into the smaller birds gathered at the bottom of the tree. Dark-eyed juncos froze with their heads turned sideways to look at it. A flock of black-capped chickadees mobbed the shrike until it finally flew across the meadow where it set off another explosion of alarm calls. It turns out that chickadees are better at identifying members of the genus Lanius than I am.

Another surprise waited inside the blind. Just outside the blind's windows, not ten feet away, an American bittern stalked through a puddle. Being a bittern, it stood very still and moved its feet very slowly. I have never seen a bittern for so long and at such close range before, so it was my first chance to study the subtle and intricate feather patterns on the bird's back. Field guide illustrations do not do justice to this beautiful bird. An American tree sparrow at the feeder - normally a noteworthy bird for me - almost seemed banal by comparison.

The "Friends" blind - the blind at the far end of the boardwalk - had an assortment of waterfowl gathered into one huge flock. I saw wood ducks, black ducks, an American wigeon, a green-winged teal, northern pintails, as well as the unusual suspects. My sister added a gadwall to that list. There were probably other species as well - either too distant or obscured by larger birds. Near the blind a pileated woodpecker called repeatedly before it flew across the trail.

A subsequent drive along Pleasant Plains Road yielded two rough-legged hawks (life birds!) perched in two separate trees. I think that both were light morph, rather than Patrick's dark morph hawk, but it was difficult to tell with that light and viewing angle. Also present along the road were a few northern harriers, American kestrels near the bookstore, and red-headed woodpeckers near the gated bridge. Several small groups of wood ducks flew back and forth across the road. At dusk, hundreds of red-winged blackbirds and thousands of common grackles flew past the overlook. Unfortunately neither owl species reported from Pleasant Plains Road made an appearance today, even at dusk. Maybe we will have better luck another time.

Lincoln's Sparrow at Lord Stirling

This morning we returned to the Great Swamp, though this time we visited Lord Stirling Park, in the Somerset County portion of the swamp. The trails there wind through a series of fields, woods, and marshes. There is plenty of good bird habitat in the park, though its size means that flocks will be scattered widely rather than concentrated.

Starting out from the nature center, we ran into flocks of birds almost immediately. There were several swamp sparrows along the entrance causeway. Then at the end of the dike, there was a small group consisting of a swamp sparrow, two field sparrows, and a Lincoln's sparrow. I had all three in the same binocular view at one point. Lincoln's sparrows seem to be moving through in good numbers this weekend, if the postings on JerseyBirds are any indication. We spotted a second Lincoln's in another field later.

Pressing on, we encountered a patch of warbler activity just inside the woods. There were parula, black-and-white, black-throated green, and blackburnian warblers mixed in with an assortment of chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches. There seemed to be more birds in canopy, but they were hard to see because of the height of the trees and the angle of morning sunlight. A nearby meadow had some yellowthroats, yellow rumps, and a magnolia.

After that, the birding quieted down for the most part. The walk was accompanied by the screams of blue jays and the cackles of red-bellied woodpeckers. In the marshes farthest from the nature center, we saw a good deal of raptor activity. A red-tailed hawk, a sharp-shinned hawk, and a northern harrier were all hoping to find a meal. The last birds for the day's list were a few ovenbirds on the return trails.

One non-bird note for today... Somewhere along one of the far boardwalks I spotted this tree with a tremendous gall at its base. The gall appears to be about two feet in diameter, and it even has ferns sprouting from its top.

BIRD SPECIES: 39

Canada Goose
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Phoebe
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Gray Catbird
American Robin
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Blue Jay
American Crow
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Northern Parula
Yellow Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Ovenbird
Common Yellowthroat
Eastern Towhee
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle