Ironically, though, my best photos were not of ducks, swans, or geese at all. Tree swallows, bluebirds and red-wing blackbirds all tend to hang out on the wire fencing prevalent in Middle Creek. This time we were able to roll up to a swallow and get a few shots before it spooked.
And finally ...
Here's one of the trails in the "Sea Camp" area of the island. Just a little down the trail is an actual campground. As we walked through the campground, we noticed many birds: numerous cedar waxwings, a common yellowthroat, some type of wren, and a very close encounter with what was probably a ruby-crowned kinglet.
The trail marker wasn't upright, but it was still picturesque, earlier hikers had decorated it with shells.
The surf scoter is probably the oddest of all of them, with an oversized bill and dots of contrasting colors on its head. But even the plain plumage of the black scoter comes with a big orange, oddly shaped bill. These two scoters are in the above picture, and that's about as close as they came in to the jetty's rocks. A friendly white-winged scoter, though, sidled right up and posed for a group of photographers, most of them shooting with cameras and lenses right out of what my Dad would have. The ice blue eye was really striking when seen this closely.
And here's the bonus, a long-tailed duck drake. You can just make out the two extra-long tail feathers in the photo. One of my favorite birds of the day!
Fort Frederica is on St. Simons Island. Its a partially excavated colonial-era fort. The original settlers grew oranges, and some trees have been restored. With no one to eat them, they lay on the ground. I thought the picture looked almost like a selective color shot.
The old streets are marked, too, making a nice perch for this Eastern phoebe. At least that's what I think it is.
Lastly, I wanted to get a nice shot of the stereotypical "look" of the coastal South - a live oak awash with ferns and spanish moss.
This was at Ft. Frederica, too. This little park was a nice surprise - we visited it simply from seeing its name on the map. The open parkland is studded with oaks and oranges and overlooks the river. I thought that it must've been an idyllic place to live, even in past centuries, until I realized that we were there in February, which is well before all the itching, biting, annoying insects come out to play.
Ok, ok, this isn't a duck, its a dunlin. Shorebirds seem to like Barnegat just fine, too. The ducks are coming right up - below is a group of six or so Harlequin ducks.
These guys have spectacular plumage. I saw a harlequin duck back in 2005 - I turned around, and there it was, and then it was gone. We got much better looks at them this time. In fact, none of the birds seemed at all concerned about human presence, making for some nice photographic opportunities. I'll post some more soon, maybe :)
Cumberland Island borders Kings Bay's Naval Submarine Base, whose specialty is ... submarines, of course! Here's one leaving the base and heading towards points unknown. At one point its hatch opened and people emerged and walked to and fro on its top as it continued its journey.
Armadillos are a common sight on the island, and aren't scared of humans. Nonetheless, they look like something straight out of prehistory or science fiction, but something still vaguely cute. 
A walk on the beach side of the island revealed some great birds, including American oystercatchers ...
I first noticed this bird fluttering through a half-snow covered chrysanthemum. It wasn't leery of human presence at all, and approached within six feet of me several times. It flipped and flitted through the snow while I watched and snapped pictures, for a total of about 20 minutes over two or three different sessions.
As an aside, this wild nor'easter weather also failed to discourage the presence of Pennsylvania's first recorded Allen's hummingbird, which is still feeding happily away at a feeder in a suburban Lancaster County townhouse development. Us Easterners are familiar with the ruby-throated hummers, who are not particularly cold hardy. However, each year, more and more reports of rufous, and now Allen's hummers are turning up in the east. These birds are well equipped to deal with temperatures into the teens and may stay in a northern area where feeders are available until late December and even January. Quite an interesting development!
Yesterday, however, the birds upped it a notch. As we were crossing the Susquehanna River at the start of our commute, we saw a large bird fly over the bridge. I couldn't confirm it was a bald eagle, but when I looked to the right, I saw a second bird with the distinctive white head and tail flying low and fast over the water. This eagle eventually landed on a rock in the river, next to another large bird. But they were too far away at this point to ID the third bird. As we arrived in York, we figured it would be too great a coincidence to see our "regular" eagle. But, we kept our eyes peeled, and sure enough, the eagle was perched on the concrete box. This time he had a friend, a second eagle sitting on a small stone in the stream. We turned the car around to get a better look, and took a picture with the only camera available to us, my coworker's iPhone. Today, with my camera in my lunch sack, we saw no eagles at all ... go figure!
Lo and behold, they're ring-billed gulls. I believe we are just about as far inland as these guys go in winter.
Over the last week, I've noticed small and large groups of tundra swans taking the same flight path, sometimes in the morning and always in the hour or so before dusk. This last shot was taken from our backyard.
Hungry? Then dive on in! It's not the best look, but a goose's gotta do what a goose's gotta do to put food on the table :) This is a snow goose in Forsythe Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey. In the next three to four weeks, tens of thousands of snow geese and smaller numbers of tundra swans and Canada geese will group at Middle Creek here in Lancaster County, and at other bird-friendly habitats across the mid-Atlantic, to gain strength to begin their northward journey to their summer nesting grounds.
These shots were taken back in March, at Mom's birdfeeding stations. As this is a busy week, I thought I would catch up on some photos I've been meaning to post, but just have never gotten around to. These aren't the best quality pictures, but the birds are cute even if they are ticked off about something :)
I will get back to my NYC pictures in the next post, but I figure some New Jersey parks are the next best thing, especially for a Super Park Saturday. Birds were the theme of this last weekend. We camped in the Pinelands, and went to sleep both nights to the sound of whippoorwills. On Saturday, we went to Island Beach State Park, where there are several beaches for swimming, and a trail that leads to a small bird blind on the bay side of the island.
While in the blind, we thought we saw a Canada goose. But closer inspection revealed what I think is a brant. I have no idea what he's doing in New Jersey at this time of year; the information I read says that brants winter in the area but are not year-round residents. This guy missed the memo, I guess, because I'm not sure what other type of bird he could be.
The blind also enabled us to watch a snowy egret stalking along the edges of the water. Later in the day, we visited Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, which has an 8-mile scenic drive through a vast expanse of wetlands and tidal marshes. Here, we saw a flock of black skimmers:
Skimmers feed by flying low along the water, dipping their lower jaw into the surf, and scooping up dinner. I haven't seen a skimmer since an evening in Alabama, when Sandy and I were on our Great Southern Roadtrip of 2005 :)
Also at Forsythe, we saw a Mama swan and three cygnets (I had to look up the word for baby swans) :) These are mute swans, which are an Old World species introduced as decorative birds for parks and farm ponds. But of course some have escaped and live and reproduce in the wild.
After about ten minutes, I had some shots of small blurry birds. Then, I noticed that Dad had come outside and was getting his tripod out of his truck. "Hmmm, maybe he's going to bring that over here?" I wondered. Yep, here he comes, the tripod attached to his camera, the camera attached to a supermondo lens. But the birds weren't cooperating too well, and it was cold, and Dad grew impatient. I was more than happy to take over the operation from him. This is the only picture I have where both male and female are in the shot at the same time.
The goldfinches have, for the most part, returned to their brilliant yellow summer coloring, but many still had olive-drab patches.
In a few more days, these branches will be obscured by the emerging leaves of the chestnut tree they are perching on. I was lucky to get the shots while I could!
A slightly ironic street name ...
some little flags (surely the cables must be buried, cause I don't see them up top anywhere :)
And a buzzard (vulture) floating on an air current. A trick of the lighting took the natural sheen of the feathers and made them appear white.
The snow fell furiously for all of about 20 minutes, just enough to coat the grass and trees.
Within two hours, the snow had disappeared and the weather cleared off. I caught the above shot before the snow (hopefully the last of the year!) melted away.
Mom regularly sees one red-breasted nuthatch, along with four or five white-breasted nuthatches. I imagine its the very same bird that I posted a picture of back around New Year's, here. I had much better lighting this time :)
