Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

After a long month of snow, blustery weather, icicles freezing onto the house, and winter in general, yesterday I decided to treat myself to some birding up in Essex County. With the winter having taken a toll on my sanity to a certain degree, I thought that it would be nice to get out and try to find some year birds. Little did I know, how good of a day it was going to be. I awoke at 7:00am and got out by 7:45am to meet the rush hour along Route 95 to Gloucester. My plan was to visit 6 different locations to secure year birds I wanted on my list,most of which I wouldn't get to see again until late next fall or winter (provided I'm still on the East Coast as well). The locations included Bass Rocks and Jodrey Fish Pier in Gloucester, Parker River in Newburyport, Salisbury Beach in Salisbury, Deer Island near Winthrop, and Horn Pond in Woburn. After braving the throngs of cars leading to Gloucester, I arrived at the looming snowed in walls of Jodrey. While the walls of sn...

I've done it again! Another bird on the list and while I'm a long way off from 350 species, but for once, I got a bird fairly quickly. As you can probably guess from the title, I saw my first Snowy Owl ( Bubo scandiacus ) near lot 7 at Parker River NWR. While it was an excellent find, I wouldn't have been able to find it without a tip from another birder. My initial strategy was to work my way down the beach and look out in both directions for anything vaguely white and owl-shaped. At lot 3, I met another birder along the boardwalk who hinted that he'd seen a Snowy near lot 7 about an hour beforehand and was currently pursuing a Short-eared Owl ( Asio flammeus ) that had been spotted nearby. I traveled as quickly as I could (25 mph speed limit after all) and got out of the car. A woman was sat in her car nearby and smiled as I walked by. "There's been a Snowy Owl spotted.", she said. I nodded and asked where it was now. "Go north up the beach ...

I must say that I've birded many places this past year. I was able to go to Florida for the first time in two years and picked up several new species, while slowly picking up several more species since then. I've even seen some of my entries on eBird show up on the rare bird alerts for Massachusetts (the most recent one being a young male Common Goldeneye ( Bucephala clangula ) that I spotted at Assawompsett Pond in Lakeville). But this past Friday, I experienced some of the best birding I've ever had. Last Friday, I went to Parker River NWR in Newburyport and my mind was blown. It wasn't simply the number of species that I haven't seen before, but also the huge numbers of other species I saw there. I saw huge flocks of ducks like Northern Pintails ( Anas acuta ), Mallards ( A. platyrhynchos ), and American Black Ducks ( A. rubripes ), as well as smaller groups of yellowlegs and egrets. In the wooded sections abounded with warblers, Swainson's Thrushes (a life...

Earlier in the week, I briefly discussed the concept of a "nemesis bird" and stated that I hadn't yet determined if I had one due to the bewildering and ever changing status of the birds I've been seeking over the past few months. For a while this summer, it was the Black-bellied Whistling Duck ( Dendrocygna autumnalis ) at GMNWR before it turned over to the last few weeks of September when I was absolutely obsessed with warblers. After getting six species: Northern Waterthrush ( Parkesia novaboracensis ), Tennessee ( Oreothlypis peregrina ), Nashville ( Oreothlypis ruficapilla ), Magnolia ( Setophaga magnolia ), Blackpoll ( Setophaga striata ), and Black-throated Blue Warbler ( Setophaga carulescens ), I started concentrating on the small, weedy fields and community gardens near me for Lincoln's Sparrow ( Melospiza lincolnii ). After getting a Lincoln's at Lincoln Meadows (ironic) in Sudbury, I looked at my remaining list. Where could I go that would get me m...