Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

After having an amazing weekend at Arisia 2015 in Boston where spending time with good friends and seeing amazing cosplay was the name of the game. One day after the end of the convention though, I decided to get out and see if I could do some woodland birding close to home. After all, even a nerd needs to get out and see the sunshine once in a while. I had some setbacks before getting out the door though. I had left my winter jacket at the hotel (but I did get to borrow my dad's warm ski jacket) and a snafu at the bank nearly put a damper on the day, but when I got out there, it seemed perfect. I exited the car and looked out over the stubble and grass of the community gardens and saw no real signs of life. I snapped some photos as I went and noticed a shadow overhead. I looked up to find one, no! Two! Two Red-tailed Hawks ( Buteo jamaicensis ) soaring in the winter sunshine overhead. These two beautiful adults treated me to a ten minute display of expert avian flight co...

*The opinions and statements made in this blog are entirely of my own opinion and do not reflect or represent the views of Drumlin Farm or Mass Audubon.   So it's happened again. I've spent a busy two and a half weeks working at camp once more and I have to say, I'm loving every minute of it. Today was the start of a new session and the day just flew by. It was amazing how well planned and coordinated a day like this could be. This week is a craft oriented week and the kids had a very nice first day getting to know the property and settling in for a week of day camp. I have been a camp counselor on and off over the past six years and this year am working as a coordinator for one of the three mini camps at Drumlin Farm. As you have probably guessed from the title, I work at Wolbach Farm which is located in Sudbury and is also the home of the Sudbury Valley Trustees. It's a lovely spot off of Route 27 and boasts a half mile loop trail in the woods on the property. The...

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...

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...

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,...