Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

As I come to know this small corner of Pennsylvania over the next two months or so, I decided last weekend that enough was enough and that while my iPhone could try with all its might to take good photos, it didn't actually compare to a good digital camera. So last Saturday, I returned from a nearby Best Buy with a Canon Power Shot SX510 and started shooting. While my first and foremost love of the natural world is rooted in bird life, I tried to take some photos of other things to get a feel for the landscape as well. Ultimately though, I took mainly bird photos and that's what I'll be sharing here. I got the chance to visit Peace Valley Park in New Britain, PA for a third time this past weekend. The main reason for my visit was to try and seek out a Red-headed Woodpecker ( Melanerpes erythrocephalus ) that had been spotted near Angler's Pier on the NW side of Galena Lake. As bad luck would have it, the bird didn't appear before me, so I took photos of other, m...

For the past two weeks, I've been acclimatizing, getting to know the people, and learning my role for my job here in Horsham, Pennsylvania. As such, I've been looking around at what's similar and different about here to home. Earlier this week, I discovered these strange cocoons hanging from the tips of a spruce ( Picea spp. ) near the dining hall. I recognized them as bagworms, but admittedly, I know little about them. So after work I looked up some information on what species they were and their life cycle. The pictures above show small, pointed cocoons about 2 inches in length, that are constructed from needles and silk, and hang from the tips of the conifer. The photo below shows that there were a lot of them on the end of the branches. There were probably up to 30 or more on the upper and middle branches of the spruce and by the looks of it, the tree wasn't looking so hot. I visited PennState's College of Agricultural Sciences entomology page and found a...

So this past week, I've traveled to a new home once again and got settled in. I'm happy to report that the people and place I'll be working at for the next few months are lovely, quaint, and filled with fun and adventures to be had. We start with our first school on Monday and I'm so ready to start teaching again. Naturally, with my first "well-earned" weekend, I set out to find some life birds. While traveling along the now familiar Interstate 76, I had decided the night before to visit Middle Creek WMA in Stevens because of the huge numbers of wintering waterfowl that could be found there. While driving, I wondered how I would look for the Tundra Swans ( Cygnus columbianus ) that had been reported there. It didn't take me long to find them. As I entered the parking lot, I munched on a granola bar and thought about my game plan. As usual, I'd come up with nothing and decided that randomly ambling about until I either got bored or frustrated was goin...