Sorry for posting a little late but have been dealing with some deadlines:

Last Wednesday, a most unexpected visitor buzzed into the Ridgewood Library -- a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

According to the library's Kerri Wallace,  "The Ridgewood Women's Gardeners has a garden right outside our circulation entrance, so something must have smelled very sweet.

"Our circulation door was open, so she just decided to let herself in.

"P.S. I just watched the security footage and it is hysterical! All it needs is Benny Hill music added."

Theresa Callaghan took the photo. Thanks, Kerri and Theresa!

Birder, photographer and speaker extraordinaire Kevin Watson will give a free Zoom talk about Iceland this Friday at 8 p.m. for the Fyke Nature Association.

Kevin will present a tour of this unique island, with its dramatic landscapes and remarkable bird life.

On view will be scenes of majestic waterfalls, black sand beaches, glaciers and blue ice caves in winter.

In the summer, the skies around the seabird cliffs are full of gulls and other birds, while the rivers and lakes are home to many nesting ducks and shorebirds in full breeding plumage.

You can register for a free Zoom account at https://zoom.us/.  More details to follow.

Since mid-2015, Fyke's monthly speaker presentations have been funded by a generous grant from the Winifred M. and George P. Pitkin Foundation.

Bird identifications can be challenging, even when you get a good view in good light.

Then there are views of birds like the one above, taken recently in Ken Wiegand's Allendale backyard.

The mystery:  What is it? (Closer view follows.)

If you love the Celery Farm, you have to love Bruce Davis.

He is the guy who has increasingly taken over mowing and grooming the trails this past summer, time and time again, using a battery-powered push mower and battery-powered hedge trimmers.

Below is his handiwork earlier this week on the Green Way path.

Thanks, Bruce, and to everyone else who helps keep our nature preserve beautiful in these challenging times!

I volunteered to help count at the State Line Hawkwatch in Alpine on Tuesday morning. Thanks to a great bunch of hawk-eyed raptor watches, I think I recorded most of the migrating raptors that passed by.

As luck would have it, the big Broad-wing push came the afternoon before. We did have a nice variety of raptors, which I was too busy finding and counting to photograph.

I did take a few shots later --  of the lookout (above) and local Common Raven, Bald Eagle and Woodchuck (below).

The cafe is open for outdoor orders, and the Porto-Sans are there if you really, really have to go.

To check the counts at State Line, click here.

My column in The Record today is about the increasingly hard to find but very talkative Brown Thrasher, featuring an intervew with ace birder and birding tour guide Rick Wright (no relation).

You can download the column here:

Download JWright Bird Watcher TheRecord_20200917_LF03_0

or read it below:

Losen Slote is one of my favorite birding spots in North Jersey, and Don Torino has written a beautiful post for Meadowblog about it.

Read it here.