Plainfield Township and the Nazareth Quarry ~ February 13, 2026

I started the day at the Knitters Hill section of the Plainfield Township Recreation Trail. There was nothing of note there. I then drove over to a nearby private residence to see a Pine Warbler that has braved the extremely cold winter, occasionally visiting a suet feeder. It came to the suet three times while I was there. I got these photos of it through a window.

Pine Warbler

A Brown Creeper also showed up while I was there.

Brown Creeper

I then drove the short distance over to the Grand Central landfill, hoping to check out the gulls. Unfortunately, I was only able to see about a hundred gulls because of where they were dumping today. As I was heading back to my car at the nature center, I noticed two large birds walking around in the shadows of the trees and brush along the fence. Eventually, they came out of the shadows, and I was surprised to see that they were some form of Red Junglefowl. As you can see from my photos, they lacked the red combs atop their heads, but were otherwise a good match for that species.

Some form of Red Junglefowl.

I then checked the Nazareth Quarry. The 5 White-winged Scoters were still present along with the Long-tailed Duck, which was fairly close this afternoon, so I took some photos of it.

The continuing female Long-tailed Duck.

I saw 5 Gadwall with the 21 Redheads and some of the 29 American Coots.

Gadwall

Five Bald Eagles (an adult and 4 immatures) were circling the quarry. One immature dove on one of the Buffleheads, which also dove to keep from getting snatched. Two Black Vultures circled overhead, a Common Raven flew west, and about 1000 Snow Geese flew by heading north. Also seen there were 12 Canada Goose, 13 Mallards, 6 American Black Ducks, 16 Ring-necked Ducks, 22 Greater Scaup, 25 Buffleheads, one Common Goldeneye, 14 Common Mergansers, a female Red-breasted Merganser, around 60 Ruddy Ducks, 2 Pied-billed Grebes, and one Ring-billed Gull.

---