Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

It's time for round 2 in the search for the Babe Ruth of Ornithology! This weeks contestants are Charles Lucien Bonaparte and Elliott Coues! The format will be the same as last weeks with a brief blurb about each contestants background and achievements and a summary of each of the positive and negative contributions they gave to ornithology. So without further adieu, here are this weeks contestants: As the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, he conquered the birds of the North American continent, not for glory, but instead for science! Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1803-1857) was the nephew of the Corsican-born ruler of France that everyone knows from history class, but this isn't his story. This Bonaparte was one of the most gifted, foreign-born ornithologists that ever graced America's shores and his work helped to cement him into the annals of ornithological history. Even before arriving the U.S., he discovered a new species of Old World warbler and upon arrival in the New Wo...

In what would normally be another life bird for me, I felt not only the usual bubbling of excitement followed by the normalizing of the experience into the sure feeling that I knew what it was I was identifying. Last weekend when I saw my first Harlequin Ducks ( Histrionicus histrionicus ), Red Crossbills ( Loxia curvirostra ), and Horned Grebes ( Podiceps auritus ) I felt these very emotions, but they've faded slightly as I remember them now. Today was different though. As the title suggests I saw a bird that I've held in high esteem since I was a boy of ten. As I gleaned through a copy of "Duck Hunting" by Dick Sternberg and Jeff Simpson, I looked over the species accounts and absorbed much of the information I know today from them. One bird always stood out to me however because it looked like the most exquisite dandy of the whole lot. The Long-tailed Duck ( Clangula hyemalis ), or Oldsquaw, as it was formerly know, with the male's large white crown and nape, ...

As promised last week, I will start the competition known as the Babe Ruth of Ornithology, the tournament designed to weed out the best contributor to ornithological history and practice in the modern era. The first round competitors this week are John James Audubon and Sir Peter Scott. Both greats in within their own time, they pioneered completely different campaigns for bird awareness with Scott focusing solely on waterfowl (and by extension wetlands as well) and Audubon being known for painting a good majority of the bird species found in North America. Below are two brief bios on both contestants which I will tabulate into which has more good points than the other. Any undesirable features that might be looked down upon by today's birding public will garner negative pointage. Thus, those with more good points (worth one point each) will win the round and move on. If however, there is a tie, I will institute a random sudden death challenge which will vary dependent on circums...

I know most people see them as walking, swimming, and flying terrors out to steal your chips and ice cream, but I like gulls for two reasons. One reason is that their almost ubiquitous presence along our shores seems almost miraculous today because of the ways they were nearly eradicated up to 150 years ago. The adults were hunted for their feathers and wings to adorn the hats of fashionable society ladies in the mid to late 1800s, while the eggs were collected from their offshore colonies for fine diners in New York, Boston, and Pittsburgh. Thankfully the slaughter was stopped by the Audubon Society and other concerned citizens and today they are one of our most ubiquitous citizens along our shores, lakes, and beaches. The second reason I have taken a shine to them is that because of their common presence around the parking lot where I now sit (and wait for hunters to hopefully come in and allow me to survey them on their success at hunting Oldsquaws. Yeah birding community, I just we...

In the summer of 2010, I came up with a list of ornithologists (mostly American with a few Brits and other folk) and pitted them together in a March Madness style birding bracket that would determine who is the greatest ornithologist of all time. To keep with consistency this time around, my rules are as follows: 1. They have to be deceased. Clears up a lot of space including living people today like Kaufmann and Sibley that have still the rest of their lives to contribute further. So yeah, you have to be dead. 2. Any country is good, but mostly Americans will be listed as they are the most well know to me. 3. Has to have made a significant contribution to ornithology (revolutionized field birding, improved bird identification, improved methods etc.) Short rules indeed. So here's the list of candidates: 1. Salim Ali 2. Elliot Coues 3. Alexander Wilson 4. Charles Lucien Bonaparte 5. John James Audubon 6. John Gould 7. Charles Darwin 8. William Brewster 9. Ludlow Gris...

There are those books that some of us have in our bookshelves that are from times gone by. For myself, one such book is a volume called "Bird-World" by J.H. Stickney with contributions by Ralph Hoffman written in 1898 (did I mention I love old books?) as a children's book for learning the very basics of bird identification and ornithology. The first story illustrates the core of 19th century romantic nature stories. The animals have humanistic characteristics and feelings that are conveyed through mannerisms, voice, color, size, or just about any other feature that the bird may possess. While I concede that being a children's book, some of the work is dumbed down in order to promote interest and understanding, but it would be equally valid to provide a platform that is educational, fun, and scientifically accurate towards the subject at hand. But that's just my opinion. Overall it's a cute summary of the life cycle of the American Goldfinch ( Spinus tr...

Great Horned Owl by Carl James Freeman There's nothing quite as pleasant as listening to the hoots of a Great Horned Owl ( Bubo virginianus ) outside the house. You don't know quite where it is or whether it is serenading another of its kind. As I sit here on this election night, biting my nails at the potential results (I won't name names but lets just say that I don't want Mr. Mitt Burns and Paul Smithers to win), it's nice to know that even on such a contentious time, one can look out the window towards to darkness and hear a kindred species hooting away in the pines. I can only hope that the hooting and hollering I'll be doing won't be detrimental towards my sanity and won't prevent me from enjoying those wonderful hoots of that owl in the nights to come. P.S. I'm too wired from the election night to be writing prose at the moment, towards the end of the week however, I will provide a review of one of the books on my reading list called ...

This will be a short entry, but a necessary one. Just two days before I left for my job in Norwalk, CT as a Long-tailed Duck or Oldsquaw ( Clangula hyemalis ) hunter surveyor, I spotted my 300th species. The goal is complete, but I don't want to stop there. Before I mention the latest species addition, I'm going to try and get as many birds as possible before the year is out. I'm hoping for 310, but we'll have to wait and see. Even 301 would be wonderful at this point. Anyhow, back to the matter at hand. The 300th species I saw on October 28th, was a single Rusty Blackbird ( Euphagus carolinus ) flying over Wayland Community Garden in Wayland, MA. I feel fortunate to have seen such a vulnerable species, but at the same time, marveled at every other birder's perceived ability to scope them out. They're very similar to Red-winged Blackbirds ( Agelaius phoenicus ) in flight and can only really be picked apart if they've landed and are pretty close by or by th...

Having recently started a surveying position in Norwalk, CT this past week, I haven't been able to update as frequently, but since it's the start of a new month, I will put this back on track today. Thank you guys for being patient. In case you were curious, the family friends I'm staying with still don't have electricity about four days after Sandy hit, but hopefully they'll have their power back by the end of this weekend. To everyone else who's suffered loss or damage in this storm, my heart, thoughts, and feelings go out to you and I hope you can get back to normalcy as quickly as possible. To those folks on Staten Island, NY, Hoboken, NJ, and other affected areas, I wish the best for you and can only hope for a speedy recovery.