Finally! It's been a super long time (many weeks!) since I was last on a nice long woods walk, and even longer since I was in the area of Naugatuck State Forest where I used to walk all the time and where I returned on Thursday morning.
The trails in this area of the forest were closed this past winter and spring so that the state could remove some trees and keep the woods healthy, and this is the first time I've visited since all this management work was finished. I still recognized these familiar woods, but they're airier now, with more space between towering pines and plenty of morning light coming in:
Most of the trees that I saw marked with paint last fall have been cut down, but this tree was somehow spared, and the poison ivy now seems to be trying to hide that mark with its leaves:
I was very happy to get to see some of my favorite woodland creatures again, like this lovely juvenile Red-spotted Newt (also known as a Red Eft):
It's a good thing I happened to be looking down at this point, because this eft was right in the middle of the path, and surprisingly difficult to see!
I almost forgot how adorable Red Squirrels are. This park is actually the only place where I've seen these creatures in my area of Connecticut, and I suspect it's the abundant conifers that makes this such a good habitat for them. Several Red Squirrels made an appearance during my visit, including this alert individual:
A Bullfrog sat on a log in a small shady pool next to the path:
Here's another pose (possibly the same frog) from later in the morning. I love that speckled throat, on both the real frog and its mirror-version self:
In an open area next to one of the lakes, banks of blazing goldenrod lit up the path:
And in the underbrush, sawfly larvae made a cool pattern around their leafy meal:
The woods were also filled with birds, including a large group of warblers in the midst of their fall migration. These very active birds stayed mostly high in the trees and away from my camera, but the sight and sound of so much fluttering, chasing, and feeding was cool even from a distance. This very plain-looking Pine Warbler (assuming my ID is correct) was one of the few birds from this group to come down to my level:
This little bird showed off some very impressive aerial skills when it spun down and snatched a decent-sized winged insect right out of the air. It then proceeded to enjoy its meal from a branch above my head:
Nearby, a House Wren called loudly from atop a log:
And a young Yellow-bellied Sapsucker sunned itself, showing off its very pretty wings:
I'm very glad I got to wander around outside and enjoy the wonderful early-fall weather. I saw some awesome creatures, munched on wild grapes (yum!), and just had a great time. Hooray for the woods!
Have I mentioned recently how much I love the Red Cedar tree right outside our apartment's office window?
This afternoon, a Pine Warbler passed through our yard and gave this tree a good going-over, allowing me to see this bird really up close. It's not the most dazzling of the spring warblers, but a very pretty little bird nonetheless:
I love that soft wash of yellow. Most of the pictures of male Palm Warblers I've seen have been brighter in color, so perhaps this was a female bird? She (or he -- I'm still not sure) was flitting quickly from branch to branch, looking all over for a meal. See anything good up there?
Sleek and graceful from some angles, and a little puffball from others -- aren't warblers great?
I'm always happy to get visitors in our tree, and it was a joy to have this inquisitive creature around for a few minutes before it moved on. Feel free to come back again any time, little bird!
This past Friday (the 23rd), while visiting with family in New Jersey for the holidays, Paul's dad and I took a trip out to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge on the Jersey shore. This place is a haven for wintering shorebirds, including some very cool visitors from the far north (more on that later), and the trip was fantastic. We saw so many awesome things, and it was hard sometimes just to keep moving forward with all the activity around us. We saw at least 34 species of bird, including six I'd never seen before. I wasn't able to get pictures of everything, but here are some highlights from the trip! One of the main features of the refuge is an 8-mile drive through fresh- and saltwater marshes to get up close to the creatures hanging out there. But before we started on the drive, we got out of the car and poked around the shrubs and trees by the visitor's center for a little while. There were tons of small birds hanging out there, and we couldn't believe how unceasingly active they were! Along with the usual titmice, chickadees, etc., there was a particularly handsom Red-bellied Woodpecker, with more red on his face than I think I've seen before:
He even showed off his reddish-tinged belly, something I don't often get to see on these birds:
A beautiful female Eastern Towhee was scuffling in the dry leaves:
And we even saw an unusual visitor:
This Pine Warbler is supposed to be much farther south at this time of year, and it actually got flagged as "rare" and required confirmation when I reported it on eBird. (This is the first time something like that has happened to me.) It was a very active bird, and it didn't seem to care that it was a well out of its normal range.
Once we finally tore ourselves away from the songbirds and drove on into the wetlands, we were surrounded by waterfowl -- thousands of ducks and geese on every side. The Snow Geese, especially, come to this refuge in the winter in huge numbers, although these snow-white birds with black-tipped wings prefered to stay some distance away from us during this trip:
These birds spend their summers in the high arctic and their winters down here -- I'm always amazed when I think of creatures traveling so far to find suitable seasonal habitats. When our Snow Geese moved, their expansive flocks made quite an impressive sight streaming across the sky:
Some of the smaller waterfowl we saw were really cool as well. This adorable little bird is an American Coot -- it kept wiggling its tail as it paddled along:
I love the warm cinnamon patterns on these female Northern Pintails -- somehow I managed to not take any pictures of the male pintails, whose striking brown and white coloring and pointy black tails make them look like they might belong to a different species from the females:
And these Northern Shovelers look almost alien, with those monstrously oversized bills:
My favorite of the waterfowl, though, was one that we came across toward the end of the drive. A flock of about a dozen Tundra Swans, huge and white with black beaks and legs, were hanging out in the marsh with a bunch of Canada Geese and Green-winged Teal. Like the Snow Geese, the Tundra Swans spend their summers right at the very top of the continent, and it feels special to get to see them here all the way down here (even if this is their normal wintering ground). We watched a few of the Tundra Swans circle above the larger group:
And then come in for a landing:
The swans were very active, calling constantly to each other in a wonderfully musical honking/cooing sound. Here's a quick video I took -- you might need to turn the volume up a little to hear the calls clearly:
So the waterfowl was awesome, but that's not all we saw! There was a Peregrine Falcon feeding on top of a nesting platform:
And in possibly the best part of the trip, we watched two adult Bald Eagles taking part in what looked like a bonding ritual -- one eagle would bend down to the ground and then straighten up and touch beaks with the other eagle, perhaps passing it a tasty morsel:
While we watched, the eagles both startled and hopped up into the air at exactly the same time:
The two birds immediately settled back down again and continued their earlier activity. Whatever alarmed them must not have been any real threat.
The trip ended with an as-yet-unsolved mystery -- a rather large mammal swimming past us:
Its head doesn't look quite right for a mink, and I can't tell whether it might be a large rodent of some sort (a Nutria perhaps?). I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any ideas!
There were so many amazing things to see on this trip -- the reserve is well worth a visit.
I went to the woods this morning and saw tons of cool birds (24 species, which is kind of a lot for me), but the little flying creatures didn't translate very well to pictures today, so I don't have a great deal to show. (Since so much of my "photography" is based on chance, this was bound to happen eventually.) The Great Horned Owl parent was drowsing on the nest, and the Palm Warblers were still flitting around (or possibly new ones had arrived). I also had fun watching a group of Yellow-rumped Warblers -- affectionately referred to in this apartment as "yellow butts" ever since we identified these birds outside our windows last fall by noting this distinguishing feature -- with the males trilling and showing off their bright yellow, black, and white markings.
And I learned a new warbler today: the Pine Warbler. This isn't a great picture of the bird by any means (when I showed it to Paul, he asked me if there was supposed to be a bird in there somewhere), but it helped me figure out what I was looking at, at least. These birds breed in the northeastern US and I think they're supposed to be fairly common around here in the spring and summer, but this is the first time I've seen one. Birds are cool. :)
I'm still waiting for the violets to spring up in the woods (I saw little leaves everywhere this morning, but no flowers yet). In the meantime, I found this beautiful little Common Blue Violet growing as a weed at the very edge of our yard. I think I like this bicolor version of these flowers more than the standard purple variety -- I love the fine tracings of purple lines near the center of the petals, and the way the color fades into the white.
And while I'm on the subject of weeds, I had to admire this Common Dandelion blooming at my doorstep. I know... it's a dandelion. But there are still so few flowers around right now, I feel like I should appreciate every bit of color I can find. Plus, it's kinda pretty.
It was 70 degrees and sunny today -- we even had the windows open for a little while! Here's hoping we get even more nice days like this soon!
