As promised, here are a couple of Ron Shields' photos of yesterday's Disposal Road Grasshopper Sparrow found by Chris Takacs. (Thanks, guys!)

Chris Takacs writes:

Sunday at the Meadowlands was a very birdy day. I started around 9 a.m. as I drove down Disposal Road. Another wonder showed up there. A Grasshopper Sparrow was on the road near the retention pond.

"I found Ron Shields and showed him. He has some nice shots, too [one is above]. Not much else was happening on Disposal for the morning other than some of the usual sparrows along the roadside.

"Ray Duffy called me around lunchtime to inform me there was a Light-Morph Rough-legged Hawk being harrassed by Red-tailed Hawks over Kingsland landfill. I was home so I came down and saw it flying off the landfill heading north.

"I made a drive down Valley Brook to check  a spot I had Horned Larks and Snow Buntings Saturday evening, and the birds were back. A dozen and a half Horned Larks and 6 Snow Buntings. Snow Buntings were on the wires overhead.

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Ray Gilbert photographed this Merlin disposing of a Snow Bunting on Valley Brook Avenue over the weekend. (Thanks, Ray!)

Chris Takacs and Mike Wolfe have seen a Lapland Longspur at the bend on Valley Brook Ave. in Lyndhurst this morning. 

Chris had another seldom-seen-around-here sparrow, a Grasshopper Sparrow, on Disposal Road yesterday — will post photos of the latter sparrow later today, taken by Ron Shields. (Thanks, Chris and Mike!)

Today's featured photographer is Regina Geoghan, who contributed two images to "The Nature of the Meadowlands" and who is a familiar figure in Jill's Butterfly Garden in DeKorte park in the summer. Regina writes:

"I have been fascinated with nature since I was a small child when I would sit on the ground in our backyard to watch the ant hill activity or
sneak into a neighboring garden to snap off a flower or two or help my grandfather weed his vegetable garden. 

"My interest in photography began with an old Kodak camera when my own children were babies.  I soon graduated to a basic Canon with interchangeable lenses and that was the beginning of a wonderful adventure of a lifelong attempt to learn how to capture the outdoors that I loved through the camera’s eye.   

"Over the years, there wasn’t much time to concentrate on building a portfolio but recently, after retirement, I have made it a personal challenge to take and post at least one photo a day to my website that captures something of the beauty and goodness of that particular day. Most often they are local outdoor photos but, at times, a still life or an abstract image created indoors.

More about Regina, two more of her photos, and her website follow.

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