Admiring a Great Blue Heron

I was admiring this photo of a great blue heron and its shadow when I remembered the poem below. 

Heron Rises from the Dark, Summer Pond  -- by Mary Oliver

So heavy is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings

open
and she turns
from the thick water,
from the black sticks

of the summer pond,
and slowly
rises into the air
and is gone.

Then, not for the first or last time,
I take a deep breath
of happiness, and I think
how unlikely it is

that death is a hole in the ground,
how improbable that ascension is not possible,
though everything seems so inert, so nailed

back into itself --
the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,
the turtle,
the fallen gate.

And especially it is wonderful
that the summers are long
and the ponds so dark and so many,
and therefore it isn't a miracle

but the common thing,
this decision,
this trailing of the long legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy body

into a new life: see how the sudden
gray-blue sheets of her wings
strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
takes her in.

Click on the photos to enlarge. 

Time for Cape May

The lighthouse at Cape May Point, New Jersey.  Click to enlarge. 

Hawks are migrating now and one of the best places to see them is Cape May, New Jersey. Lots of the birds flying down the Atlantic flyway get channeled into the southern tail of New Jersey and end up concentrated at Cape May Point. They often wait there for weather favorable for the flight across the Delaware Bay and on southwards. Tens of thousands of hawks fly through Cape May every year from September through November. On some late September and early October days the official count can be over 2000 birds.  

If you'd like help with identifying hawks overhead, there is no better place than the hawk watch platform in Cape May Point State Park where experts record every bird that flies over. There are also hawk banding demonstrations in the nearby pavilion. Click here for a link to the park's website with directions and a description of activities. Just head for the lighthouse and park in the lot. 

Often the overhead birds look like this, so take binoculars.

But sometimes they get pretty close. 

And sometimes you spot one in a tree. 

And there are lots of songbirds migrating, too, so there is something to watch between hawks. To me the songbirds always seem a bit nervous, what with all those songbird-eating raptors around. 

Not only that -- monarch butterflies are migrating now and they pass through Cape May, too, sometimes in large numbers. I've seen hundreds of them gathered on the same tree there. There is an active monarch migration research program that you can read more about by clicking here. Add in a walk on the beach and some saltwater taffy... how can you resist? 

It is the end of September already!

I am on vacation. Here's a poem by Sara Teasdale in my place: 

September Midnight

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,

Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing, 

Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,

Ceaseless, insistent. 

The grasshopper's horn, and far-off, high in the maples,

The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence 

Under a moon waning and worn, broken,

Tired with summer. 

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,

Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,

Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,

Snow-hushed and heavy.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction, 

While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,

As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,

Lest they forget them. 

Insect Hunting

I spent part of today hovering around late summer flowers, looking for the last of summer's insects. 

I saw the lovely bumblebees pictured above. Click to enlarge. 

And a cool scape moth. 

And hoverflies in lots of colors and styles. This one was gleaming in the sun.  

There were a lot of milkweed bug nymphs out today, and a dozen more things that flitted by before I had a chance to photograph them. 

I was walking to another spot when something on the side of a rock landscape  feature caught my eye -- inside that red circle. 

It was this! It's a European paper wasp's nest with two male Polistes dominula wasps on duty.  (At least there were two outside, but I think others were watching from the shadows.) 

Curled orange antennae...  

I flipped this shot. They look like they are coming for me, right? 

Look at that face! 

And I noticed I was not alone. I saw two praying mantises searching the bushes right along with me. This is mantis number one -- waiting to catch an insect to eat. 

And here's mantis number two holding something it caught. It left off eating when I walked over to snap the picture, then it went back to  eating as I backed away. So -- the bushes are still full of insects. Summer is not quite over. 

Hackensack River Ride

I took a pontoon boat ride on the Hackensack River in New Jersey! 

The Hackensack River flows through the marshy New Jersey Meadowlands where the Jets and Giants play in MetLife Stadium. It passes the spot where the American Dream Mall has been slowly rising for over a decade (they say it will have an indoor ski slope). Highways and train tracks cross the Hackensack -- the NJ turnpike, Route 3, Route 46, Interstate 80, the Pulaski Skyway, PATH trains, NJ Transit trains, and AMTRAK. The river has seen development come and go. Structures crumble on its banks, giant tanks of who-knows-what dot the shores, and there is an abundant legacy of old bridges reminiscent of Jules Verne machines.

Click on the photos to enlarge. 

The Hackensack River was severely polluted for a very long time and the surrounding marshes were dumping grounds. There are still health advisories against eating fish caught there. But there are fish -- and hopefully will be more along with other returning wildlife. The area is recovering from its industrial past through a combination of enforcement of the Clean Water Act, declining manufacturing, and the efforts of conservation groups.

Groups like the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission, now merged into the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority or NJSEA; they've been working to restore and protect the Meadowlands environment since they were established in 1969. The place is finally getting some respect. You can go for a pontoon ride on the Hackensack with the NJSEA for a contribution of $15.00, and they will tell you all about it.

Click here to go to a NJSEA webpage that describes how to sign up for a boat ride. 

The boats have comfortable couch-like seats. A guide points out wildlife and historical highlights along the way. And they're friendly -- one of our two boat convoy went back to shore to pick up some late arrivals. We went up river and passed double-crested cormorants on pilings, then down past the sports complex and future great mall. Along the way we spotted great egrets, great blue herons, snowy egrets, mallard ducks, herring gulls, great black-backed gulls, and ring-billed gulls. We saw an osprey sitting on a transmission tower and an empty red-tailed hawk's nest in which a brood of chicks had been raised earlier this year.

A great egret. 

Cormorants, gulls, and an old tire. 

The Empire State Building and the skyline of Manhattan are visible in the distance. 

Even if we had not seen any wildlife, the trip would have been worth it for the unique view of industrial northern New Jersey and the interesting old bridges. There were swing bridges and vertical lift bridges -- some with massive counterweights and others with giant wheels to coil cables while hauling or swinging their midsections out of the way to let boats pass. The active bridges each have a small cabin in which a worker waits at all hours to let boats pass. They waved at us. Looking up, you can see but not hear trucks far overhead on highways that curve with unexpected grace into the distance. As we went under one of the rail bridges, a train thundered over our heads.

Train bridge. 

One tower of the Upper Hackensack Lift Bridge.  The entire center section of the bridge can be lifted to let boats pass. 

The giant wheels on top of the Upper Hackensack Lift Bridge tower. 

One bridge had this massive counterweight to help lift its moveable section

This rusty abandoned swing bridge sits in mid-river in the open position. 

Meadowlands landscape with gulls. 

Happy Labor Day

A pair of Northern pintail ducks -- like a mirror image -- with their reflections.  Click to enlarge. 

Camouflaged!

"The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself." Henry Miller

Click on the photos to enlarge. 

There is a well camouflaged praying mantis nymph inside that circle. They rely on camouflage to hunt, sitting unseen until their insect prey come within striking range -- and then seizing them. It's pretty darned good camouflage. I wonder how many of these we pass without seeing them.