Category: Birding
Anything and everything about all manner of bird watching.
It’s not every day a visitor comes to the Scherman Hoffman feeders that can’t be identified by director Mike Anderson. But this one was a puzzler.
Take a look at this picture Steve Byland took as he looked below the feeders with Mike by his side.
Looked at from the back, it’s a sparrow, perhaps a white-throated sparrow. What makes me think that? The stripes on the head and the reddish brown feathers on the back.
You see white-throats every winter. Besides the distinctive white patch at the throat there are stripes on the head that come to a yellow tip next to the eyes. In spring you hear the high-pitched whistle that sounds like “Oh Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody.” Unlike common sparrows, there is no black bib or streaking on the white front.
Now look at this bird head-on, in Steve’s second picture. Now suddenly we have something completely different. It seems to have the gray head and pinkish bill of a junco, another common bird of winter you will see in your backyard. Male juncos are slate-gray above, white below, has white on either edge of its tail. 
(The ones in New Jersey tend to be males, who stay farther north than the browner females in winter, presumably to get to prime northern breeding territory faster come spring.)
When Mike and Steve saw this bird beneath the feeders they saw more than an interesting bird. They saw a topic of discussion for the greater birding community.
If there’s anything birders like better than getting into the field and adding to their life lists it’s finding a rarity, something miles from where it’s supposed to be. And then they love to tell the world about it, drawing others to the scene.
We’ve had a lot of interesting visitors in the east this mild winter. A western broad-tailed hummingbird spent months at New York’s Museum of Natural History, allowing many people, myself included, to see this unusual visitor. There have been reports in upstate New York of a visiting gray-crowned rosy finch, another western bird and there have been reports of birds that didn’t go south for the winter such as the yellow-breasted chats in New York’s Bryant and Union Square parks (I saw the one at the latter). Even Scherman Hoffman’s feeders were recently visited by a redheaded woodpecker.
So Steve, with great trepidation, went to the New Jersey bird list and voiced the possibility that what he had photographed was a black-chinned sparrow, a bird of Mexico, the US southwest and part of California.
As the old punch line goes, could happen.
I and others were thus alerted to this strange bird. I couldn’t get to Scherman Hoffman to see the visitor but I am told a lot of people did visit and a lot more – including no less than Kenn Kaufman, of the Kaufman field guides and “Kingbird Highway” himself – gave their opinions via email.
The prevailing consensus is this is some sort of strange hybrid between a junco (likely male) and a white-throated sparrow based on a number of factors including field marks, where the bird was seen and how it was acting.
“I look for distinguishing characteristics or ‘field marks,’” Mike told me. “Because we all have experience watching birds, we expect to see some species in certain places at different times of year and recognize a general impression of size and shape. A gray-headed bird with a thin, ivory bill in the weeds under the feeders in March is probably going to be a junco. When it turned to the side and presented the field marks of a sparrow on the back and didn’t present the white outer tail feathers of a dark-eyed junco it suddenly became something new and intriguing.”
That’s when Mike considered the possibilities.
“Could it be a black-chinned Sparrow? No, probably not, they don’t really occur east of New Mexico,” Mike said. “Time to take some notes on the field marks that don’t fit what we’re used to seeing. I can either draw/write my own field notes or ask the professional photographer, Steve Byland, standing next to me to snap some pictures. Steve got some really good pictures that revealed the field marks we saw with the naked eye: dark head and brown streaked back. His photos also showed faint white on the throat and brown stripes going up the neck and onto the back of the head. Added to what we initially saw, these field marks don’t really fit with any birds in the field guides. After sending the pictures around the consensus is that this bird is a hybrid between a dark-eyed junco and a white-throated sparrow.”
“Also funny was the behavior was more sparrow-like for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on,” Steve Byland added, a common feeling when you are seeing something unusual out in the field. When he first saw it under the bushes he thought it might’ve been yet another type of sparrow, the white-crowned, which is of the same family as the white-throated but is a bit bigger and grayer in front, with a pinkish bill like the junco.
Also, he said, “it dug at the ground with both feet like a white-throated sparrow. I can't say that I've ever seen a junco do this, but I may just not have noticed.”
Mind you, if this is a hybrid it is an usual coupling. I would’ve preferred it to be the black-chinned sparrow, which to me is more likely than a hybrid of two different types of sparrows that don’t interbreed as a rule.
That I can even participate in this discussion shows I’ve learned something in my years as a birder.
As a child my mother pointed at a red bird and said, that is a cardinal. The blue one is a blue jay. The one picking worms off the lawn is a robin. The others were pigeons or sparrows. That’s all she knew and that’s all birds are to most people, a few familiar ones and everything else. Something big flying over you is a “hawk,” whether it is a red-tailed hawk, a turkey vulture or a bald eagle.
A new world opens if you take the time to learn just how many different types of birds are out there. There is always an identifying field mark, something unique to that bird. It is the basis of Roger Tory Peterson’s field guides (with acknowledgement to Ludlow Griscom) you can find in any bookstore, including Scherman Hoffman’s. Songs are another way to identify a bird. So is habit. You expect to see juncos and white-throats in the backyard in winter. You don’t expect to see a hummingbird whose wings beat at thousands of times a second and need a lot of pollen or insects to be able to do that.
Mind you, I still get stumped. This is a picture of a bird I saw in a central New Jersey grassland last year and I still don’t know what it is. Do you?
Whenever I see or hear something unusual my first thought is “what the heck is that?” or some variant. If I can find the bird I try to note where it is – tree (type and how high), ground, shore, grassland – color, any field marks, then mark down some way to remember the song and later check the guide I leave in the car or back at home. (If you bury your face in the field guide to identify one thing while outside you miss the chance of seeing and identifying more.)
With spring coming on you are likely to find a great variety of birds passing through Scherman Hoffman on their way north. Every year I have to relearn the field marks and songs of various warblers, for instance, so I can tell the difference between, say, a magnolia and a myrtle.
Years ago, at the lower Scherman lot early one morning, I thought I’d seen a Blackburnian warbler – a masked, orange-fronted bird – in one of the trees. I told Mike Anderson about it during our bird walk. When I later saw a black-throated green warbler with its masked face, light front, black throat and green on the back, I realized I’d misidentified the first bird, which had been sitting high in a tree with the sun full on it, making it look more orange than it was.
Things like that always happen out in the field and Mike knows bird identification is not an exact science. Besides, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility a Blackburnian could’ve been passing through that day, which is why he was kind enough to believe me.
After all, stranger things have happened – as the latest feeder visitor can attest.
(My thanks to Mike Anderson for sharing his thoughts and Steve Byland for permission to reproduce his photos.)
Margo D. Beller
Scherman Hoffman has one-hour bird walks on the Sanctuary grounds every Friday & Saturday morning starting at 8am. Meet in the parking lot right outside the Nature Store.
If you’re a birder, you always want to see what you’ve never seen before. Some people go to great lengths for a glimpse of a rarity. Some find these birds without even trying.
Scherman Hoffman had an unusual one the other week – a red-headed woodpecker at its feeders.
You may think you’ve seen one, but likely you haven’t, at least not in this part of New Jersey. The more commonly seen red-bellied woodpecker (shown here) has red going along only the back of its head. It is named for the pinkish area on its belly. Despite what you may see, it’s not a red-headed woodpecker.
Neither is the pileated woodpecker (shown below), which is crow-sized and has a red crest above a black and white head and a solid black back.
The red-headed woodpecker has an entirely red head, a snowy white breast and belly, and back and wings that are solid black over solid white.
It does not usually come to feeders. When I’ve seen them they’ve been in the Great Swamp in Morris County, not very far from Bernardsville, where Scherman Hoffman is located. Recently, several were seen in Lord Stirling Park. Every year at least one juvenile is reported in New York’s Central Park. I was surprised to find one along Patriot’s Path, not far from my house as the woodpecker flies.
My husband has never seen a red-headed woodpecker, although he isn’t particularly upset about this. He enjoys birding but is more laid back about it than I am. Years ago, when I heard an adult red-headed woodpecker was hanging around in a tree along the driveway to the old visitor center in the Swamp (now a parking lot) and practically begging people to photograph it, I HAD to go. It would be too easy and I could see something I’d never seen before.
I almost missed this striking bird but for the kindness of another birder who pointed out the proper tree. It was very much worth seeing and I regret having no camera with me (even on my phone of the time).
MH has never seen one despite my many attempts to find one for him – for his own good, of course. When I heard of the one at the Scherman feeders – the FEEDERS, right out front – I had to drag MH over to see it.
We struck out.
We were heading up the driveway when we stopped because a small group was canning the distant trees. “It’s in there,” one said. A cold and windy day, I knew MH wasn’t particularly happy to be there, because I wasn’t happy either. But I was hoping, and when I saw a large woodpecker on a tree I pointed it out to MH.
It quickly disappeared but I realized the back was solid black, not black and white. When the pileated started calling my guess was confirmed. (Red-headeds make a call that sounds like “Queer!”)
Was there also a red-headed woodpecker out there or had the others misidentified the pileated? I’ll never know. It wasn’t at the feeders that day and it hasn’t been reported since.
My husband likes to call these wild bird chases my hunt for the Grail Bird, after the book written a few years ago about the search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, thought extinct but supposedly found in an Arkansas swamp. I have other grail birds, some of which are birds that are reliably reported every year during migration by other birders. The Wilson’s warbler, for instance. I’ve yet to get a clear view of one, preferably an easy-to-identify adult male, in all the times I’ve sought it.
On a trip to Florida a few years ago, despite seeing a host of new (to me) birds including an anhinga, two types of kites, a wood stork, limpkin, plus prothonotary warblers everywhere, I was upset at not finding a yellow-throated warbler (not to be confused with the common yellowthroat, which lives up to its name and even I can find). This is a southern bird that has been reported in the New York metro area with increasing regularity. I thought I had seen the one reported in central Jersey a few years ago but with the setting sun in my eyes – a common problem when I am looking for warblers – I can’t be sure. I figured finding it in Florida was a gimme. Wrong.
Perhaps it’s better to keep looking. It keeps me outside and looking around instead of indoors. I know there is a fine line between the urge to explore and expand my horizons and an obsession, and I walk it every day as I’m scanning the trees and ponds, wondering what I’ll see next.
Any bird is a good bird if you’ve never seen one before. If you just want to get out of the house and see birds, Scherman Hoffman is a great place to do it. There are bird walks every Friday and Saturday mornings at 8 am, which despite the early hour can draw big crowds of eager birders when the migrants are passing through.
And there are always the feeders drawing birds you can watch from inside the store. Who knows, maybe I’ll find that Wilson’s warbler there this spring.
By Margo D. Beller
As Margo mentioned, join us for a morning bird walk any Friday or Saturday morning at 8am. Meet at the new Hoffman lot (closest to the new store) and bring your binoculars! (But don't worry--a binocular can be loaned to you if you need one).
One takes so much for granted in this world. Walking, for example.
Towards the end of his life my father couldn’t get around very well because of Parkinson’s disease. He walked unsteadily but would use a wheelchair for longer distances or attending a family function. One day when I was visiting I decided I would wheel him over to the waterfront four long blocks away, to get him out of the house.
It was an eye-opener for me. The sidewalk cracks and ruts I could cross with nary a thought would get the wheels of the chair stuck, forcing me to strain to push the chair out and jostling him around in the process. Curbs - few were adjusted for wheelchairs as they are now - were another hurdle to be carefully surmounted.
He never complained - we eventually did get to the bay and later I rolled him back home in the street, which was more dangerous but smoother - but I know he would’ve preferred being driven.
I thought of my father recently when one of my friends happened to mention going up to Scherman Hoffman to get something from the store - seed, a feeder, I can’t remember - and had taken her uncle. He is another man who doesn’t go very far on foot (although he doesn’t have Parkinson’s) and so uses a wheelchair. My friend wanted to get him out of the house and away from the television. While she was inside shopping, she said, her uncle had stayed in the car.
If you enjoy birding or even just taking a long walk, anything that limits your independence can be terrible, and having a disability can be the worst thing to happen. But it can also be a challenge to spur you to overcome it - if you want to do so.
At Scherman Hoffman the handicapped have their own entrance to the education center, from the upper lot to the second floor. From there they go to a classroom or can take an elevator down to the store or up to the outside platform. My friend’s uncle could’ve gotten out of the car and gone, slowly, into the building but felt safer in the car.
I contrast him with a woman I’ve met in my birding travels who also can’t get around very well but has a completely different attitude - she birds from her car. She drives to an area and just sits with her binoculars and waits for the birds to come, sometimes for hours at a time. She told me she has seen quite a lot that way, and she is happy with that because otherwise she would not be able to go birding.
Considering the hills of Bernardsville where it is located, going down from the Scherman education center and into the woods is difficult for those who need wheels or are unsteady on their feet, although plenty of older, steadier people enjoy walking on the sanctuary’s trails. There are no boardwalked trails as can be found in state or federal nature areas such as the Great Swamp or Cape May State Park.
As those of us of the Baby Boom generation get older, we don’t want to be kept captive by our disabilities. If you go to a search engine such as Google and type in “birding tours for the handicapped” you will find a host of websites providing tours for those in wheelchairs, the disabled or the elderly. There is even a group, “Birding for All,” with chapters in the UK and the US, that seeks to “improve access for people with disabilities to reserves, facilities and services for birding.”
This is a wonderful thing. Since we can’t make ourselves younger (at least physically; mentally is another thing), if you can’t take yourself out to the woods for a quiet stroll the next best thing, I think, is to go on a tour with others like you who have good (birding) and bad (the pain, etc.) in common and are equally focused on retaining their independence.
It is a scary thing to feel your mortality. There are times when images through my binoculars look fuzzy, even when the binoculars are in focus. There are times when I take a long walk and soon feel tired, although I usually get my second wind when something flies over. Still, I’d rather be tired on my feet walking a trail than stuck sitting inside.
Would my father have grown to share my interest in birds had I known more at the time and driven him to a suitably birdy location? I’d like to think he’d have at least tried to learn something, as I did when I pushed his wheelchair so long ago.
Margo D. Beller
To everything there is a season, and that is true for birding.
Spring and autumn get all the press because that is when the warblers and other tropical migrants pass through on their way north to their breeding areas of choice, or south to the warmer and buggier areas when it is cold up here. Summer is when a lot of birders go to the cooler shore for shorebirds or brave the bugs for the mountains.
I happen to like winter birding when the leaves are off the trees, the cold is bracing and the crowds are sparse. That‘s one reason I like to go to Scherman Hoffman.
Don‘t go expecting to find warblers or the other birds that sing in spring. They won‘t be there. That doesn’t make the birding any less interesting.
There are lot of birds that fly south to the rest of the Lower 48 when the cold comes on. Imagine, they consider New Jersey warm enough for them - a funny concept to remember when we are shivering from what we consider arctic winds!
Some of these winter visitors are rather common, especially at the Scherman Hoffman feeders. The junco, for instance. This slate-gray and white little guy - and in New Jersey it is always a guy because the browner females fly farther south for the winter (perhaps the males stay farther north so they can get to the breeding areas quicker) - is a pretty reliable indicator that winter is coming on.
This white-throated sparrow is another. The male’s white “eyebrows” and the yellow spots on either side of the bill near the eye get brighter as the winter goes on. Unlike the junco, males and females winter together, and you will hear the high whistling heard as “Oh Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody” as the territorial battles begin.
Others are not as common, like the American tree sparrow with its distinctive reddish cap and a bi-colored bill, gray on top and yellow below.
I have never seen a rough-legged hawk at Scherman Hoffman - redtails and red-shouldered hawks or either type of accipiter are more the norm - but roughies are a bird of the tundra and sometimes in winter it will come down to a similar grassy habitat, even a landfill like the one abutting the DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst, near the Meadowlands (Got rats?), which draws a lot of different raptors every winter.
Short-eared owls usually show up in birding reports in winter, such as the one Mike Anderson unexpectedly found at the Scherman one morning during his Friday bird walk, but a less-common visitor is the snowy owl, which as the name implies is very white, as befitting a big owl that hunts by day in the arctic. The number of snowy owls making it into the lower 48 depends on how good the food supply has been up north. This year a lot of snowy owls have been reported, such as the one that’s been at Merrill Creek Reservoir in Warren County, NJ., for the past few weeks.
No leaves makes it easier to see the yellow-bellied sapsucker drilling holes in a tree, or to locate its more raucous cousin the redbellied woodpecker when it calls. I’ve seen purple finches and cedar waxwings come in for the seed or fruit provided by the trees.
It’s too bad there are no big ponds at the center because winter also means ducks. The common eider and the harlequin duck are standard winter ducks at the rocky jetty of Barnegat Light. If you look on a local pond before it freezes chances are you will find one or more of the three types of mergansers (common, hooded and redbreasted), ruddy duck or ring-necked duck. When I was last at Scherman I didn’t find any wood ducks on the Passaic River but at Great Swamp were hooded mergansers, black ducks and the more common mallard in those waters that had not been frozen by the recent cold.
As I said, one advantage of winter birding is the leaves are off the trees. Redtailed hawks are easy to see from a great distance when they sit in a bare tree, and it makes it easier to find the white-breasted nuthatch or chickadee calling from a limb over my head.
But perhaps the best thing about winter birding is you don’t have to even go outside. If you have a feeder out - better still, many feeders holding different types of seed or suet as the sanctuary has - the birds will come to you. Try it and you’ll be amazed by what you can see.
Margo D. Beller
Join the Great Backyard Bird Count at Scherman Hoffman--Saturday February 18 from 8am to 10am. Join us as we spend some time outside counting birds, then we'll head indoors and continue "window" counting while enjoying refreshments. This program will be combined with our regularly scheduled Saturday morning bird walk, and it's free. Join us!