Goldfinch

Here are some photos of the American Goldfinch, the State Bird of New Jersey. Mike took about 200 Goldfinch pictures while Chris was in the hot tub. Here are the best three pictures of Goldfinches.

Male Hairy Woodpecker

Will we ever get tired of taking pictures of the Hairy Woodpecker?

Two Downy Woodpeckers at the suet feeder

Great Blue Heron

Here is our first photo of the Great Blue Heron. He's at least 3 times the size of the night heron, so we hope to get better pictures some day.

Two Black-Crowned Night Herons

We were out on the deck at dusk and noticed the Black-crowned Night Heron staring at us. We took a few photos and then a different heron, possibly its mate, flew out of the tree. It's hard to tell, but we hope there is a heron nest in the tree. These photos of the night heron were taken about ten minutes apart. We like birds that stay still. (He did move his foot a little.)

Belted Kingfisher

This belted kingfisher is one of our favorites. He looks like a cartoon character.

Starling

A pair of starlings has taken over the birdhouse, evicting the tufted titmouse. Over the course of two days, they took out all of the wood shavings that came with the birdhouse and replaced them with twigs, grass and dried leaves. They like to rearrange their new home and will often remove a recent addition.

Wood Duck in a Tree

We were happy to see a pair of wood ducks back on the lake this morning. Here's a picture of the male on the lake. They flew off into a tree. We took an early morning walk and got this photo of the female about 50 feet high.

Wild Turkeys

We went for a walk this morning. We brought the camera along in case we found where the Wood Ducks had flown to. We saw a group of Wild Turkeys in the side yard of a house and started taking a few pictures. The owner spotted us and invited us into the backyard for a better look. They were a nice couple who seemed to appreciate wildlife as much we do.

Cardinal on a branch