Greater White-fronted Goose
From Mike Hiotis:
Mid-afternoon today I had the Greater White-fronted Goose close to the driveway at Lyons Veteran’s Hospital on the west side fields. This is the entrance drive off Valley Road. Judging from your photos (see this post) somewhat showing the birds top 3 dark belly bands tapering out to the flanks it may be the same bird seen at the Lord Stirling horse farm?
Sandhill Cranes
Up to 6 Sandhill Cranes continue on Randolph Road, Franklin Township (many observers). It may be a “get these birds while you can” scenario. Development is taking over the area including fields where the Cranes have fed in the past. Lot by lot, Randolph Road’s neighboring fields are falling to the bulldozer.
mocosocoBirds 
The Randolph Road area is indeed getting developed at a crazy pace. The down side up an up market…
To reply to your concern about Crane lots being developed:
The first big lot (from Schoolhouse Rd) along Randolph, which
belonged to the Pillar of Fire church, has been under development for
some time – it was essentially approved for development in 2006.
This is where the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher was a couple of years
ago. The lot north of the House Foods tofu plant belongs to New
Jersey American Water; it is not likely that anything will happen to
it, their water treatment facilities are far from Randolph Rd. The
big field along Randolph Rd still belongs to Pillar of Fire, and so
far as I know they have no plans to sell it. Unfortunately it seems
to have been in soybeans this year rather than corn – I think the
cranes prefer the corn fields. There is a big field behind which
also belongs to Pillar of Fire, and was in corn this year. One has
to walk in to get any kind of look at it. NJ American Water has land
extending down to Weston Canal Rd. There is another lot between it
and the lot along Randolph Rd, which is approved for a warehouse –
indeed it has been approved three times, warehouse, data center,
warehouse again; not much has been done. Farther south, Pillar of
Fire has corn fields both sides of Schoolhouse Rd. They could sell
any of these fields, but so far have shown no signs of doing so;
another possibility is conversion to soccer fields.
I looked for the cranes on Thursday, didn’t see them (though in the
field north of Weston Causeway, 106 Canada Geese were accompanied by
one Snow).
Ted Chase
Franklin Twp (Councilman and Planning Board member)
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