31 Friday Dec 2021
Posted in Photography
Tags
Brigantine, bug sur, cranberry, death valley, junco, McWay Falls, Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, monument valley, paratroopers, paris, postaday, Princeton, South Jersey
I started this blog in 2012. To make room for newer posts, I had to delete some of the older posts, but kept their images on my PC. Following are some of the most liked photos throughout the years.
30 Thursday Dec 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge, Photography
Tags
Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, egret, Fish Crow, great blue heron, great egret, postaday, red-winged blackbird, yellow-rumped warbler
I have looked many times at the following image of a Red-winged Blackbird chasing a much bigger Fish Crow away from the vicinity of its nest. It was actually chasing two Fish Crows, but only one was caught by the camera. Gumption and tenacity are words that apply well to the Red-winged Blackbird.
This year, one big bird was everywhere around the refuge. I shot many pictures and even have one post dedicated to it, Great Blue Heron. However, the following monochrome shot was liked by many.
In November, I saw Yellow-rumped Warblers for the first time. They were eating Juniper berries and did not fly away allowing me to take many shots. Here are two more unpublished until today.
Hundreds of egrets stay at the refuge almost year round from the end of February until December. They spend their time fishing, and sometimes fighting each other, jumping up like ballet dancers.
With so many egrets and other birds , I sometimes wondered whether there ever is enough fish for them. One day a few weeks ago, I looked down into a shallow part of the refuge and saw thousands and thousands of fish swimming around, with not a bird in sight.
This concludes this 2021 Images in Review series. I wish all of you a Great and Happy New Year in 2022!
29 Wednesday Dec 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge, Photography
Tags
Big Eyes Butterfly., Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, monarch butterfly, postaday, sayen Gardens, snowy egret, sunflower, wildlife drive
I planted small sunflower plants this year. The deer left them alone since they had so much else to eat. The one below adorned a side of our driveway.
In the spring and early summer Sayen Gardens was the ideal place for photographing flowers. One day, their pond looked milky white (I don’t know why) and the few plants showing through the water got an unusual and striking background. The following shot is in monochrome.
My year-round favorite place is the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. In these days of coronavirus, it is the perfect place to find fresh air and solitude. Audubon groups of birdwatchers with their binoculars came there almost every day, but they tended to congregate at places near the entrance to the refuge. I prefer to drive on the 8-mile long Wildlife Drive.
In the summer familiar, and sometimes unusual, butterflies abound along Wildlife Drive.
Egrets were in abundance at the refuge and provided many photo opportunities.
28 Tuesday Dec 2021
Posted in Photography
2021 was the year of the 17-year Brood X cicadas. Tens of thousands of their shells littered our yard and their singing during the day was incessant, lasting from early morning well into sunset.
Some of my most satisfying photo captures are the following of a superb flyer, a White Ibis near its rookery in Ocean City, NJ.
27 Monday Dec 2021
Posted in Photography
Tags
bluebird, bunker, cape may lighthouse, deciduous azalea, mockingbird, postaday, red-winged blackbird, snow melt
In four more days, 2022 will be upon us. For the rest of this year, I will repost some of the images that you, the readers of this blog, have commented on or liked. A couple of them will be posted for the first time, since I suspect you may find them interesting.
26 Sunday Dec 2021
Posted in Photography
This is my first post for Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday challenge. Here’s the link to his post:https://photobyjohnbo.wordpress.com/2021/12/26/cellpic-sunday-225/
So far I have not taken many pictures with my cellphone, a Samsung Galaxy S21. Following are some that I took over the past few months, in no particular order.
The following photo was taken two years ago, with an older Samsung Galaxy camera, a free one from the telephone company.
18 Saturday Dec 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge, Photography
Tags
Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, great blue heron, great egret, green-winged teal, Northern Shoveler, postaday, ruddy duck
I shot the following photos over the past several weeks. The birds and ducks shown are some of the usual visitors to the refuge during fall and winter.
15 Wednesday Dec 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge, Photography
Peregrine Falcons stay year-round along the ocean in New Jersey. I see them occasionally but usually they fly too fast for a good photo. In the fall they make a habit of perching themselves on nests that Ospreys abandon when they migrate to warmer climates. Two days ago I saw a Peregrine Falcon on Wildlife Drive at the refuge, surrounded by several cars like mine.
Like a fashion model, it knew how to pose and obligingly turned its head for another shot.
Finally too many cars had stopped, and it flew to another Osprey nest on the other side of the road and turned its back on all the humans.
Then it flew away very fast.
14 Tuesday Dec 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge, Photography
Yesterday the refuge was mostly deserted. Only a few white egrets remained, the rest having migrated just before the cold arrived. However, there were many ducks which come and stay during the colder months, and Great Blue Herons which do not migrate. I found several of them as soon as I arrived and, when the light was right, got the following shots.
04 Saturday Dec 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge, Photography
Tags
Last week, a flock of some twenty Tundra Swans could be heard whistling noisily as they fed on one of the refuge marshes. I did not see them until the last part of Wildlife Drive. They were swimming around near a similar number of Ring-necked Ducks. This was the first time I saw and recognized these ducks.
High in the sky a UPS plane was heading toward Newark airport, probably bringing in all those Christmas gifts.
04 Saturday Dec 2021
Juche: The Demon of Yodok is the first book in the Juche series by Adria Carmichael a writer who lives in Switzerland. I read it last year and found it hard to put down as it is one of the rare fictionalized accounts of life in North Korean concentration camps, Yodok being the most notorious.
If you want to read the book, Adria is offering the Kindle edition for free on Amazon at this link from December 4 until December 8, 2021.
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