Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

The past few mornings this week I've been hearing the high-pitched clucks and kuks of the log cock or as it's more commonly referred to as the Pileated Woodpecker ( Dryocopus pileatus ). Pileated Woodpeckers are really something to behold. For one thing they are big! When you see a Downy Woodpecker ( Picoides pubescens ) or even a Hairy ( P. villosus ) at the feeder, they looked pretty well proportioned for a woodpecker. Even Red-bellied Woodpeckers ( Melanerpes carolinus ) look fairly decent as well. But once you have a Pileated visit, you don't soon forget it! Another pecker of the trees I've been noticing recently is the Northern Flicker ( Colaptes auratus ). When I went out to take some photos yesterday evening, I saw a family of flickers dust bathing and anting in the parking lot. I'd never seen that before and while I tried to get closer, the whole group flushed as I made my approach. While the pictures were from far away, they still seem to capture the dedi...

It's the middle of the summer (although some might argue that the middle of the summer would be around August 6th) and the lull before migration is weighing in. There have been a few bright spots such as the recent sighting of that Red-necked Stint ( Calidris ruficollis ) in Parker River NWR and at Edwin B. Forsythe NWR, as well as the many Little Gulls ( Hydrocoloeus minutus ) dotted around the Atlantic coast and Great Lakes. With my other computer in less than perfect condition, I have to rebuild my bird list from scratch, starting with the difficult decision to scrap all bird records without sufficient dates. I know I've seen them before, but I don't know when. As a result, I have no better recollection of what I might have seen and what I might not have seen and as a result, the numbers on the list will suffer. This does throw the goal of 350 birds into jeopardy as well and at the moment, I'll have to see what the list looks like without those dateless species fi...

Today's blog entry is going to take a little bit of a turn in content. I'm visiting my girlfriend for July 4th weekend and I went to work with her at her sites today. As we were leaving the last site, I noticed a rapidly weaving, dove-like bird, flutter to the top of a telephone pole. We stopped the truck and got out to have a look. It wasn't a dove at all but instead an escaped Cockatiel ( Nymphicus hollandicus ) sitting pretty on top of the pole. I tried whistling to it to coax it down, but not no avail. These are the pictures I took of it. It appears to be a pied male and it was spotted on the intersection of Sunbarr and Stygler in Gahanna, Ohio. I would be thrilled if any of my readers could get this bird back to its owner (as it is most likely an escaped bird. Ohio isn't known for its burgeoning Cockatiel population after all.). It was seen just after 1pm and it seemed pretty happy to be free. I hope I have been of help and we can get this bird home A...