Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

So often it seems in our world today that everything feels more complex than it used to, or that the world is moving much quicker than it ever has before. It's during these times that it helps to withdraw into the beauty of nature and enjoy the quiet that surrounds us in those wild places. We might go fishing at a favorite pond, bicycle along a wooded road, or bird in nearby fields search for species seen and unseen to brighten up our day. I would most likely be conducting the latter and with me would be the standard equipment of all good birders: a pair of binoculars and a field guide. The binoculars go without saying, but it's ultimately the quality of the field guide that determines if a birder or naturalist can quickly and efficiently identify the bird that has been seen. The last "great" field guide to be hailed and celebrated as "revolutionizing" the field of bird identification was David Sibley's "The Sibley Guide to Birds". While I use ...

This blog entry will be shorter than most as I've injured my knee, thus preventing me from birding and updating the blog more regularly. I'll be better by next week and I hope to be able to provide a better feel for what's good for birding into the early fall. With that out of the way, I can explain the title. "Norn" is simply a corruption of the word "northern" and can be best heard through a Northern Irish accent. Therefore "Norn Flyers" refers to something northerly and with the ability to fly. While many "northern" breeding species are coming from the Arctic and northern Canada to migrate along the food rich coasts and store the vital supplies needed to migrate to their winter homes further south, the bird I'm speaking of is by no means a migrant, but does wander great distances to find food, shelter, or simply just to soar. The bird I'm referring to is the Common Raven ( Corvus corax ). Several have been spotted over Mi...

I've made a goal for myself. A birding goal of course. I've made it my business for the last few months to reach 300 bird species on my life list. What I've learned so far is that: 1. Birding by how many you've seen and how many you've yet to see can be maddening, time-consuming, and yet extraordinarily good fun. 2. Rare birds are often more trouble than they're worth. And 3. While the pursuit of the goal is often the main driver, just the shear enjoyment of the task makes it all worthwhile. This isn't one of those projects started in the new year as a resolution and slowly forgotten over the ensuing months. This was a journey born from the books I brought on vacation to Florida this March. One was based on the musings of an English teacher from Chapel Hill, North Carolina entitled "The Verb "To Bird"" I'm not sure where I got this book, but I go back to it from time to time to read a certain section (the anecdote about the Turkey V...

Ludlow Griscom (1890-1959) while not as famous as Concord's Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or Nathaniel Hawthorne, his presence is still appreciated by ornithologists and birders who have graced a local library and perhaps found a curious volume called "Birds of Concord". The book itself isn't a field guide, but instead a reference for any bird lover that wished at the time to better understand the mechanisms behind bird abundance and rarity as well as why migration occurred and what birds were considered common in this small, but rigorously surveyed portion of Massachusetts. Griscom himself was one of the first ornithologists to shift away from "shotgun ornithology" and instead use the field marks present on a bird body to determine its identity. Around the time of Griscom, it was common for those studying birds to have to shoot them in order to tender an identification of the bird in hand. This was certainly true for smaller, harder to see songbirds like sp...

Initial sighting was this Great Egret ( Ardea alba ) with the duck appearing shortly afterward with the help of some fellow birders. The most common adopted posture of the bird. Good eats for the duck by the looks of it. You could almost mistake it for a dead, brown lily pad, couldn't you? "Ugh. Another birder?! Gimme a break, will ya?!"

There is nothing quite as exciting (for a birder at least) as getting a rare bird alert. For the most part, the "rare" birds that appear on my eBird page are generally birds that are an unusual siting for that particular area. Just today, I have alerts for a Snowy Egret ( Egretta thula ) at Great Meadows, Yellow-crowned Night Heron ( Nyctanassa violacea ) near Duxbury Bay, and a Northern Shoveler ( Anas clypeata )at Coachlace Pond in Clinton. While I've seen all of these birds before, their presence in these areas is deemed to be unusual or strange for that particular area. However, none of these sightings could compare the joy I felt when (finally!) after a month of visiting I was rewarded with the sight of a Black-bellied Whistling Duck ( Dendrocygna autumnalis ) that had been present at Great Meadows for much of the summer. The two pictures to the side are the best ones I took and illustrate the unique look that the bird possesses. While most of the pictures...

Perhaps the loneliest songs are those sung in the woods in a New England summertime are those sung by the Eastern Wood-Pewee ( Contopus virens ). Its double-noted prefix of "pee-a-weee" and its suffix "pee-wo", sung in a drifty, yet uplifting tone. This is one of those summer sounds that permeates the woodland long after more vociferous species such as Northern Cardinals ( Cardinalis cardinalis ) and American Robins ( Turdus migratorius ) have stopped singing for the summer. Many times in the past few weeks, I have been walking with a group of campers, trying to get them to follow along with the general direction of the group and get them to the places they need to be on time, only to grow frustrated by either their almost incessant need to walk as slow as possible or having been so absorbed in their own little world that they unintentionally hinder the group's progress. These are the times when I have felt the greatest stress. However, when I have opportunity t...

Musketaquid. The name sounds as ancient as the North American continent, brimming with the history and knowledge of another time when much of the continent was still wild and largely unkempt. What it actually refers to were the extensive grass meadows that were commonplace in the Sudbury River Valley where many species of birds both great and small existed for thousands of years. Recently after work, I took a detour down Water Row, a road in Sudbury that cuts through a portion of National Wildlife Refuge land allowing one to view the marsh from either side of this asphalt division. It was there that I saw the shape of a familiar, long-legged marsh bird. Two Great Blue Herons ( Ardea herodias ) were stalking the dry marsh floor for any wayward frogs and other morsels might have escaped the radiating heat of the sun, perched in the sky, far above our planet. The marshes associated with the Sudbury, Concord, and Assabet Rivers are a haven for wildlife of all forms and features. However,...