Friday, March 21 – my boyfriend and I took a spontaneous trip to Barnegat Light in the hopes of seeing (and photographing) the beautiful Harlequin Duck. No luck on the duck, but I did get to see some new birds!!! I saw my first oyster catchers! They repeatedly flew near the lighthouse & walking path, and landed on the beach across the way – which we found our way to. I also saw one brown bird hanging out near some red-breasted mergansers – its body was like a merganser but much bigger, and instead of the thin, slightly curved beak, it had a dagger-like bill! I was thrilled when our helpful members answered my forum question and let me know it was actually MY FIRST LOON! YAY! I have no idea how common “common loons” are, but I have never seen one and have wanted to for years. The red-breasted mergansers were also pretty exciting to see – I saw my very first one on one of my more recent Sandy Hook trips. The male and female mergansers were both present at Barney, diving frustratingly (from a photo standpoint) frequently. We also saw lots of seagulls (as expected) and some Brant – it’s kind of funny, I’ve never seen a Brant before this year, and now they turn up almost everywhere! ^_^ It’s a good thing though. The day ended with a beautiful sunset, the lovely warbles of mystery song birds silhouetted against that same sunset (so no pictures), and some sort of egret flying in the distance.
Monday, March 24 – I did a solo birding trip to The Raptor Trust in Millington, NJ. As usual, I ended up getting there with only about an hour or two’s worth of sun left. The Raptor Trust is a fantastic place to see birds of prey up close and personal. The Trust rescues, heals, rehabilitates (when possible), and either releases or permanently houses all kinds of birds – not just raptors. They also have tips on what to do if you find an injured bird. Very helpful place – their website is www.theraptortrust.org/ Well, as fantastic as the Raptor Trust is, I went there NOT for their captive raptors but for a wild, female Northern Harrier that I saw in the swamp right next to the parking lot - several weeks ago. She was magnificent – the sunset caught in her feathers making her absolutely glow in flight. She flew close to the ground and landed often. She even landed 20 feet away from me… but by then the sunlight was nearly gone and my pictures were less than ideal. We were told that the Harrier had been hanging around for ages – so I was very hopeful that she would still there on Monday trip… but she wasn’t. =( Well, the bird enclosures were open to the public until dusk, so I tried my hand at taking pictures of the Trust’s residents… but their cages make it VERY difficult – lots of mesh and things to try to shoot through. Funny enough though, the vulture enclosure had wild vultures on top of them, peering in. Actually, there were (and usually are) large numbers of wild vultures around the Trust. At least 30 of them. So I managed to get a few good wild vulture pictures. I can’t really tell if they are immature turkey vultures or black vultures, but my money’s on black vultures – due to the white feathers just at the tips of their wings instead of half their wing feathers being white / light grey. After visiting all the birds several times over (especially excited by the singing Golden Eagle, the friendly raven, and the very vocal red-tailed hawk) I visited with one of my favorite Trust inhabitants – the Great Horned Owl. All the other times I’ve been to the trust, I’ve gotten an adorable series of hoots, but no go this time – s/he was FAR too sleepy. =) As I left, I checked for my Harrier again… and though she wasn’t there, I did get to see three playful deer far in the distance. I zoomed in with my camera and filmed them in the dusky light – catching what I thought was happy, bounding, playful deer … but (upon seeing the video on my TV screen) turned out to be them spotting me and running like mad. ^_^
