This past Sunday we ventured out to see the Harlequin ducks at Barnegat Lighthouse jetty. That was supposed to be the only place we were going. Chalk it up to a CRS moment (can't remember sh** moment) or maybe I was just lulled into a simply enjoying the day moment, but as we passed the turn onto Rt. 72, Sheryll asked "Where does that road go?" Not wanting to let on that I blew the turn I just said that goes blah, blah, blah. So a few miles down the road when I had to admit that we weren't going to Barnegat right away, we decided to go a little further south to the Edwin Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge area first. Even if I was man enough to admit I was wrong there is no place to ask directions anyway. South Jersey on some roads are just long drives of scrub oak and pine trees. Besides, what really makes us work is Sheryll is great with a map and we always venture out with them in our travel bag.
The Forsythe area is just north of Atlantic City and is a unique place where you may have a Bald Eagle in your view finder and also have the giant windmills and towering casinos in the background. We have visited in the past but this is the first time in mid winter so we didn't know what to expect. The marsh area was windswept and snow covered and didn't look that hospitable for man nor feathered beast. The cold wind wasn't much of a problem until we opened both front windows and then the harsh reality set in. Amazing what a 3/16" piece of glass can do. Some areas are wooded but the big attraction is the 8 mile loop drive. First impressions shouldn't be relied upon because all you see is a large frozen tundra of snow, grasses and frozen water. Soon after starting the drive, some open water areas appear and black ducks are a common sight. An occasional common merganser and a lonely snow goose to start. We couldn't figure the snow goose. Normally they are in groups of thousands so this one was more confused in his trip than I was. We came upon a large flock of northern pintails and got some good
shots of them. We had to watch shooting because out one side we were shooting into the sun and on the other had the sun working for us. On one side we were adding exposure compensation and the other not. Pintails are a pretty bird and came out nice against the ice and water. A big surprise was as I was watching out my window, a hawk flew by just cruising on the winds less than 10 feet off the ground and barely 25' from the car. At first we thought it might have been the Northern Harrier we have seen before but grabbing a few shots and looking at it back at home we found it to be a Rough Legged hawk, a first for us. The picture may be slightly over sharpened but according to the metadata he was 148' from me and moving away. This was with my 80-400mm @400. I was lucky to get it. Their coloring is amazing this time of the year because when they set down, they disappear. Klingons of the marsh!Driving further we came upon more firsts for us, Gadwall and American Widgeon. Someone had seen a coyote in the area (there is a log book to keep track of sightings) but all we saw were its tracks. As we rounded one of the turns we thought the hawk came by us again but this time it was clearly the northern harrier. The white markings on the tail was very distinct. We began to travel at 10 mile an hour and he slowly moved with us and when I tried to get up to him or ahead, he simply crossed behind us and then back again. He seemed to want to travel on just one side of the road. I backed off as I didn't want to stress him, after all, he has to live there.
For being dumb, it turned into a pretty good day. We added more birds to our list. I'm not sure where we fit in to the birding scheme. Do we go out to take bird pictures or do we see birds when we go out to take pictures?
Anyway, it's all part of the adventure so out we go. The next blog will cover our original intention. By the way, I did remember how to get home so there may be hope yet. Or at least I haven't fallen that far!Always go to the light,
Steve
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