Great Blue Herons are a common site at the refuge as they are readily visible due to their large size. They are the largest among all herons. However, they only weigh five to six pounds (between 2 and 3 kg) and their flights are impressive to most human eyes. I took the following shots of a GBH at the beginning of February on a cloudy and rather gloomy day.
Buffleheads are among the smallest ducks that are visible at the refuge in winter. They literally run on water as they take off to fly to some other spot on the refuge ponds.
Last Saturday the refuge had about 2,000 Brant and 4.000 Snow Geese, according to estimates made by other birders. Shortly after I arrived, the Brants took off and darkened part of the sky.
About a mile away from the Brants were many Snow Geese scattered among several refuge pools. Some seemed to be sleeping while others were intensively foraging for food. They are voracious vegetarians that only leave after they have consumed everything possible such as grasses, leaves, tubers, roots.
For about 15 minutes, small groups of Snow Geese flew in to join the groups near where I was stationed.
There were a few minutes of calm after all the arriving Snow Geese landed. Then suddenly all the Snow Geese took off, filling that part of the refuge with loud noises of thousands of wings flapping and some honking noises. I was caught by surprise and could only hope that the auto focus on my camera worked.
Today, as I was leaving the refuge, a brightly colored bird suddenly crossed the road. It went to hide behind a small tree. I drove toward that spot to take a closer look. The bird stayed on one branch and allowed me to take many shots of it. It turned out to be a beautiful male Eastern Meadowlark. It’s lifer for me, and here are the best photos of it that I shot today.
Today the sky was too cloudy, with little sunlight, but this colorful lark made it worth a visit to the refuge.
Yesterday was a cold day for New Jersey. It was 28 °F (-2.2 °C) when I arrived at the refuge, and the temperature did not budge from that when I left after an hour and a half. During that time I saw mainly ducks, Mute Swans, Great Blue Herons, and Hooded Mergansers. All the white Egrets had migrated south.
However, many Yellow-rumped Warblers were chirping and feasting on Juniper Berries and I took the following photos of several of them. Their pale brown colors show that they were still immature birds perhaps born in 2023.
I have been photographing Hooded Mergansers for the past ten or more years, almost always at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. For the past two years I either did not see them, or they were too far away to get decent images. This year they did not disappoint.
Hooded Mergansers is a small bird with visible and beautiful, very noticeable hood or crest, especially on the males. Last week a bunch of them were frolicking openly as high tide began filling the marshes with ocean water, fish, crustaceans, mollusks and other of their preferred foods.
On Thursday of this week, I drove to the Gull Pond at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. Upon arrival, I saw Egrets and Mute Swans at the opposite end of the pond. I set up my tripod and camera and started taking pictures.
Mute Swans are usually graceful and peaceful.
But they are also very territorial. Both male and female swans defend their territory against any intrusion by other swans, animals, or even humans.
Starting in 2018 a new small island has been created off the coast of New Jersey, about 6 miles from the Edward B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge near Smithville, NJ. Nature has been forming the island with sand flowing down from Long Beach Island.
The public, myself included, has not been allowed to visit the island so the photo and video below are from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection on their public site at https://dep.nj.gov/njfw/conservation/horseshoe-island/.
Many birds, over 2,000 currently, have been nesting or roosting on the island since its creation. In 2021 they included American Oystercatchers, Least Terns, Common Terns, Royal Terns, Black Skimmers, Red Knots, Piping Plovers, Brown Pelicans.
Below is a recent and informational video from NJDEP about the island:
This past Wednesday, I arrived at Edwin B Forsythe Refuge and started on Wildlife Drive. There were many egrets on either side of the drive. I soon arrived at my favorite spot near a culvert that allows the West Pool to take in ocean water at high tides or discharge its own water into the ocean at low tides. Usually Snowy Egrets would stand on the culvert sides to catch fish as they swim from the ocean into West Pool or vice versa. Sure enough, there was a Snowy Egret standing at the middle point of one side intently looking into the water.
I got out of the car with my camera to try to photograph the Snowy Egret. Suddenly another Snowy Egret landed with a thud in front of the one that was looking for fish. This new arrival had already captured a good-sized fish and was carrying it in its beak.
I hurried to snap a few shots and managed to get the following in no more than a dozen seconds.
For the past ten days or so, our region has been affected by smoke from hundreds of forest fires in Nova Scotia, Canada. Climate change was immediately blamed, but according to the Canadian Mounties the fires originated from arsons.
A few days ago I drove to the refuge for another visit. As I came closer to it, the sky got dirtier and darker, as if the refuge itself was on fire. Traffic was very slow as many roads were blocked. It took me three hours to get there, and my car GPS asked me whether I needed it to search for a rest area since I had been driving for a long time!
The birds at the refuge were sparse, sand flies were everywhere and a few even got into the car. I only got a few shots on an Osprey couple at their nest, and one Red-winged Blackbird.
On another subject, Canon had a sale of some of their mirrorless lenses. I bought the cheapest one, a RF 50mm/F1.8 lens, for $99. It is very small and would be very good for street photos. To test it out, I used it to photograph some flowers in our backyard, and the new lens did not disappoint.
Barn Swallows live throughout the world and number some 190 million birds. In the 19th century they were often killed to supply decorative feathers for the millinery trade, but that has come to an end. Now Barn Swallows live happily among humans who benefit from their voracious appetite for flies and other flying insects.
Yesterday I went to the refuge and saw beautiful Barn Swallows perched at two different locations.
I took photos of a female Northern Harrier a year ago, and posted some of them last January. Today, while looking through the archive, I found another photo that outshines those. As you can see below, an eye of this raptor is clearly visible on its owlish face.
Yesterday at the refuge several Buffleheads were diving for food. If they catch anything, they eat that while still underwater, so I won’t be bragging about any photo of a Bufflehead with food in its bill. However, their dive can be quite dramatic.
Buffleheads are very small ducks, as you can see in the following shot.
The weather has not been too nice lately. I went out to Barnegat Lighthouse, but it was very windy and cold, and there were no birds other than seagulls flying around. So I dug into my archives and came up with the following shots taken at the beginning of 2022.
I took these last two photos from our deck during and after a snowstorm.
Buffleheads are the smallest ducks in North America. They have more often than not proved to be difficult for me to photograph. When they are close enough, lighting would not be coming from the right direction for a photo to show their eyes and faces. Buffleheads are also very shy and will fly away if one comes too close or makes any kind of noise.
A few weeks ago, I was lucky to see a group of Buffleheads at the refuge busy swimming around and diving for food. Somehow, they paid scant attention to me! So here are a few shots of them that day, taken from a good distance away.
Yesterday I went to the refuge to photograph some of the last birds that are still there before the onset of winter. I spotted a Great Egret that was looking for fish by a stream next to Wildlife Drive.
Suddenly I saw a Cormorant (I previously misidentified it as a Common Loon) emerge from the water with a fish in its bill.
The Cormorant dove into the water with the fish. A couple of minutes later, it reemerged at another part of the stream, looking happy after having ingested its meal.
White-breasted Nuthatches are again coming to our birdfeeder, feeding themselves at their preferred angle, i.e. vertically and upside down. Sometimes I wonder how they manage to swallow those sunflower kernels, but they do.
Most birds eat like the female Downy Woodpecker and House Finch shown below.
Following are images of an Osprey couple sharing a fish around 8:24 AM yesterday. I saw the male Osprey fly in with a fish, but by the time I was ready to take pictures, he was already standing on a side of the nest where the female was incubating.
Usually, he would have eaten the head of the fish, leaving the rest to her.
Last week, I went to the site of a Bald Eagle nest at the refuge. It was high on a pine tree, but a Bald Eagle mother and Eaglets were visible from the road.
The EBF refuge’s Visitor Center puts up Purple Martin houses every spring. Those birds take them over and create a busy intersection as they fly into and out of their chosen condo. A photographer only has to stand below and aim a camera up to photograph the birds. However, they fly very fast and one has to be quick on the shutter!
Late Spring sounds like the name of a movie by Yasujirō Ozu, but it is very real for us this year. Almost a month after it was supposed to start, this year’s spring has been dragged kicking and screaming to make its entry, and it exacted extensive revenge on all sorts of plants and flowers. Our magnolia trees which normally bloom with thousands of vibrant flowers have had most of their buds killed by frost. I can count less than a dozen yellow flowers on our Butterfly Magnolia. It usually has several hundreds in April.
And here’s a view taken last week of the refuge.
The Ospreys have arrived and became occupants of six platform nests along Wildlife Drive. Yesterday, I saw a male Osprey dining on the head of a fish.
Meanwhile his mate seemed to be still sleeping.
Further down the road, the Osprey couple that lost a fish to another Osprey a few days ago were waking up. He, on the right, did not appear to be in any hurry to go catch a fish.
Rather than wait for them, I drove on to go see the night herons in Ocean City. On the way out, a very small turtle crossed my path.
Finally a beautiful dove was standing by the side of the road.
Red-breasted Mergansers are fairly common in the winter along the coast of New Jersey. In the past two weeks, I took their photos at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge and also near the Barnegat Lighthouse on two different occasions.
According to All About Birds, a Red-breasted Merganser has to eat 15 to 20 fish per day, requiring it to dive under water for 250 to 300 times a day! The Red-breasted Merganser population in North America is stable and has been estimated at 500,000 in 2017.
Winter would be very dull at the refuge if there were no duck. When most other birds and egrets have migrated, the ducks arrive and entertain us. Following are some images of them that I took yesterday. Duck hunting season will end in three days but I did not see or heard any hunter.
It was a beautiful and cold three days ago at the refuge. After hiding for most of the week, the sun was out. The wind was blowing fairly strongly and lifted the clouds toward the heavens.
As I drove on Wildlife Drive, a Northern Harrier pair was hunting for food, such as voles and mice, among the low vegetation along the marshes. They cut in front of my car, disappeared in the grasses at times. I tried to follow them and only managed to get an occasional shot.
Meanwhile, ducks and geese took off in dramatic formations against the blue sky.
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!
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.