Oddities

Roseate spoonbill, Rte, 94 NJ (RE Berg-Andersson)

What you see here is a roseate spoonbill, a bird normally found in such places as the Florida Everglades. According to the bird people at Cornell, the spoonbill forages "in the shallows of fresh, brackish, and marine waters including bays, mangroves, forested swamps, and wetlands." 

You do not expect to see this bird on the property of a New Jersey stone company along Route 94 in western Warren County. 

And yet there it was, reported by many on the various online bird lists, using that large spoon-shaped bill to root out worms that had come to the surface after recent flooding rains created a large pond in the middle of the stone company's lawn. MH and I saw this bird on May 30 in the afternoon, after we had spent many hours driving along Old Mine Rd. in the northwestern part of the state, seeing or hearing 50 different types of breeding birds including 12 types of warblers.

It's fun to find birds you normally don't see, such as we do along Old Mine Rd. once a year, but when I see a bird that was somehow blown way out of its territory, it makes me sad. I wondered where the spoonbill would go once the water receded. Would it fly south and seek another spoonbill? Would it stay where it was and die? I don't know. Most winters someone reports a hummingbird in New Jersey. Hummingbirds need a lot of food to power their wings, which beat thousands of times a second. One year a hummingbird normally seen in the west was lucky enough to find its way to a nature center in western NJ. The staff quickly rigged up a heat lamp and a feeder for the bird, which survived into the spring when MH and I saw it.

Most "accidentals" aren't so lucky if they show up at the wrong place in the wrong season. Others discover things ain't so bad. For instance, for the last several years, including this year, a white pelican has shown up at DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst, NJ., hard by the NJ Turnpike. It is hanging out in a large pool with double-crested cormorants, great blue herons and other marsh birds. There is lots of food or these birds wouldn't be there. At the same time, brown pelicans has been reported as coming farther north, too. I've seen these stately birds in San Francisco Bay and the Chesapeake Bay, following the fish. On occasion they are sighted as far north as southern New Jersey.   

Why are formerly southern birds either showing up in the north more often or have now become year-round residents, such as the Carolina wren or the mockingbird? Strong winds can blow a migrating bird off course. Global warming could make a bird comfortable in a new region. Evolution could be helping a bird adapt to a new climate. Warm waters could force fish farther north, bringing those that eat them north, too. 

There are all sorts of explanations. Pick your own. Most birders, eager to tick off an unusual bird they don't need to travel far to see for their Life Lists, don't care.

Here's another oddity.

Witch hazel leaf (Margo D. Beller)

I was taking a walk the other morning when I walked into a branch of this sapling hanging over the road. I noticed what looked like horns on all the leaves. I'd never seen anything like this before.

I asked my brother-in-law, the naturalist. He said this was a witch hazel and that the "horn" was caused by an insect boring into the bottom side of the leaf to lay its eggs - so many eggs they had come through the other side to create the "horn" I was seeing.

Many people go into the woods to look for frogs, insects, animals, plants and butterflies. I prefer birds but MH has been known to show me something interesting, such as an American toad off the path or a wooly bear caterpillar.

Tulip poplar on the road. (Margo D. Beller)

I guess I have to broaden my horizons and look down more often. For instance, it was by looking down I found this tulip poplar flower a squirrel must've snapped off - I hadn't realized the tall poplars had put out flowers to attract pollinating insects. When I was growing up my parents' neighbor had a huge tree that eventually shaded out the sun-needing flowers in our backyard. However,  the tulip flowers were at my eye level from the back porch.

According to one source I found, the tulip poplar is one of the largest of the trees native to the eastern U.S. It can grow as high as 190 feet but is more typically 70 to 100 feed. The trunk can be 10 feet in diameter. 

When I see them in my town they are usually in so-called waste areas. Few keep this as a yard tree anymore, apparently. A couple of years ago one person a few streets away cut down his stately, old tree, thus creating his own waste area.