Snow Geese!

We took a drive down to Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Ocean, NJ on New Year's Eve day. I'd heard there were snow geese there and I'd never seen them before, so I was looking to get some pictures.

There were a lot of them!!

A snow goose lands in the wildlife refuge, surrounded by his kin.

Trio of snow geese in the water.

A juvenile follows an adult.

They kept dunking their heads to eat the underwater vegetation.

I got some good pictures, and even found an elusive "blue goose," the dark morph snow goose.

Dark morph snow goose, or "blue goose."

Marching to the beat of his own drummer.

They all were very peaceful, swimming around and eating.

Saw a lot of ducks, too, several different kinds. More on them in a few days.

What the flock? Northern Pintail ducks swam and fed among the snow geese.

What a great day!

OMG, OMG, OMG!

I drive by an eagle's nest every time I go to the gym, and now that the leaves are off the trees, you can see it from the road. Today there was an eagle sitting up there near the nest! First time I've seen one there. So excited I stopped in the road and made traffic go around me so I could get my picture!

Very far away, through lots of branches. Not the greatest, but it's the closest I've ever been to an eagle.

Taken with pocket camera, Canon PowerShot Elph 530HS, fully zoomed (12x optical). Heavily cropped and Photoshop "smart fix"ed.

Turkeys on the Tracks

It's taken me a while, but here are the turkeys I saw back in October. Photos taken from the car window in Midlantic Park, on the way home from West Deptford Park.

"It's coming from that way."
"No, that way."

"Can I get a little privacy here?"

"Where's that train? We've gotta get out of town fast!"

Taken 10/10/15, Canon 7D Mark II with Tamron 150-600mm zoom lens, at about 200-300mm. Leaning on my car window for stability. Cropped and corrected with Photoshop "smart fix."

Killdeer!

The other day I took a walk around the neighborhood, including around the middle school. I got over there around 6 p.m. and was shocked to see about 8 killdeer in the grass of the athletic field there.

Of course I didn't have a camera, just my phone. I took a lot of pictures, but none of them were good enough to get a positive ID. Here's the best one:

So I went back over in my car the next day at about the same time. Nothing. Disappointed, I drove around the school and then decided to give it one more go.

Just two of them, but I got some awesome pictures!

The setting sun highlighted them perfectly!

I love that you can see their golden eyes!

Such cool birds!

I saw some turkeys that evening, too. Some of those pictures another day.

Canon 7D Mark II with Tamron 150-600mm zoom lens. All at 600 mm leaning on my car window. Cropped, sharpened and corrected with Photoshop "smart fix."

Burning question

I grew up in Northern NY State, and we always had bird feeders. One of our more common visitors was the Black-Capped Chickadee.

So when we moved to South Jersey, set up our feeders and the chickadees came, it never occurred to me that they weren't the black-capped variety. But they aren't!

Even though they look almost exactly alike, and I can't tell them apart at all, apparently our chickadees are the Carolina type.

Here's the Sibley guide to telling them apart:
http://www.sibleyguides.com/bird-info/black-capped-chickadee/black-capped-carolina-chickadee/ . It doesn't help.

All my pics are Carolina Chickadees.

Who knew?

Canon 7D Mark II with Tamron 150-600mm zoom lens. Taken at 250-350mm on a tripod. Cropped but otherwise uncorrected.