Free as a Bird

I am the first to admit that compared with what is going on in the rest of the world during this coronavirus plague time, I've gotten off easy. I have not lost my job, I continue to earn my pay, my health is good and MH recovered from what was fortunately a mild bout of the illness. Still, we're afraid. The virus is out there and it is very contagious.

And there is the mental effect. I hate to sound like a whiner but I have been generally depressed by the hoops we must now jump through for something as basic as going to the market, and have been afflicted by a restless feeling of isolation.

Tempe Wick Reserve, Mendham, NJ (Margo D. Beller)

Having state and county parks closed has deprived me of places nearby to visit on my lunch break or on the weekend. It has forced restless neighbors and strangers to take to my quiet street if they need to get out,  creating more traffic on sidewalks and noise as I try to work. I stopped walking on my town's roads weeks ago because it is depressing to have people - almost all of whom are not wearing face masks, unlike me - run into the street with their pets or children, or cross it entirely so we don't come too close.

Social distancing has made us all anti-social, or maybe just scared.

So I've been staying home, restlessly working or sitting on my enclosed porch, doing chores in the yard and watching the birds at the feeder. Until this past Saturday.

It is mid-April and I'm seeing reports the birds are starting to make their way north. Early migrants - pine and palm warblers, chipping sparrows, phoebes, redwinged blackbirds - are already here. There will be birds passing through that, for whatever reason, won't be interested in what my yard has to offer. So I must go find them.

Necessity is the mother of invention. While most of my usual birding spots are closed to me, I decided to go to some still open and relatively close to my town, including a new (to me) place I learned about from birder reports.

So off I flew off on a rainy, chilly, gray day when I figured most people would stay indoors and allow me to bird in peace. I was right.

First stop, a local park in a different part of Morris County (not every town closed local parks; mine did). This turned out to be a wide-open space with a flat, grassy path that was, unfortunately, sopping wet and muddy from that morning's rain. The many flickers, cardinals, savannah sparrows (another early migrant) and the great blue heron that flew over did not mind the wet and neither did I.

(Margo D. Beller)

Second stop, a pond on the border between Morris and Somerset counties, where I could park on a side street not far from the entrance to the federally run Great Swamp. There is a lot of fast-moving traffic on the road I must cross from where I parked to the pond but it is a very good area to see birds in all seasons, including ducks and other waterfowl. This time there were five different types of swallows zipping around - large purple martins, forked-tailed barn swallows, white-breasted tree swallows and at least one each of the brown northern roughwing swallow and the smaller, gray bank swallow. Across the road I found palm and yellow-rumped warblers in and around the shrubs. A birder taking pictures of the swallows was eager to talk so we traded information and told stories from a socially approved distance. I realized how much I missed talking to another birder.

Back at the car I drove to the end of the street, where there is a turnaround close to the Great Swamp's entrance road. In a tree near where I parked I found more palm warblers plus a couple of pine warblers and, wonder of wonders, a larger, gray sparrow with white trim on its tail and an eye ring - vesper sparrow! I'd never have seen it driving on the entrance road.

Finally, while many of the swamp trails have been closed, the main tour road is still open. I made several stops, careful when I walked or drove around people. One birder in his car told me of the kestrel in a tree on the edge of a field. I found it. In another area where I once found a barred owl I stopped and found my first-of-season eastern towhee and veery plus a field sparrow, among others. At the overlook, two distant female northern harriers passed over the trees, hunting.

I was having so much fun I hated to go home but cold, fatigue and hunger were taking their toll. I made a few short stops on the way home, mostly to listen from the car, and discovered something odd: Many people seemed to me to be driving the back roads aimlessly, for instance taking a road that ends at a trail head. As I sat by that trail head listening to the Canada geese, I watched a number of cars come in, turn around and leave without stopping. Maybe their GPS told them the road went through, which it hasn't for decades.

Great Swamp tour road (Margo D. Beller)

Or maybe this was a way for people to get away from home and avoid others without worrying about catching the virus, the ultimate in social distancing.

It makes me wonder what life will be like when we return to "normal." For now, at least, my restlessness is gone.