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Showing posts with the label caspian tern

Nature Note #147: Why Nature?

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There are a lot of interesting things people have chosen to write about in this world. Some focus on the politics and problems of the world at large, while others write about their pet hobbies and ideas. I have chosen to write about an obsession of mine which is as large and varied as the world it encompasses. Those of you that visit regularly (despite the slow updates) know that the subject this blog covers is all things nature.  But why nature?  It seems like a simple question, but really it can be answered in so many ways. I will never know what precisely perked my interest in nature to start with. Maybe it was the day I watched a blackbird play over the garden hedge in Wales as a young boy, or the first time I ran terrified from my fishing rod when I caught my first ever Bluegill ( Lepomis macrochirus ). Perhaps it was the first time I canoed with my family down the Sudbury River taking in the smell of the water, the Red-winged Blackbirds ( Agelaius phoenicus ...

Nature Note #123: All Terned Around in Cape May

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All puns aside, this is a post about the Whiskered Tern ( Chlidonias hybridus ) (sort of) and my visit to Cape May on Sunday. After working all last week and seeing report after report of this Code 5 Whiskered Tern at the state park at Cape May Point, I made the 2 1/2 hour journey from Horsham to Cape May and started my quest for the tern. After arriving at 10:45am and asking around at the hawkwatch platform, I was dismayed to find out that it had been visiting regularly in the afternoon instead. Despite this setback, I decided to comb the park for some year birds instead. I didn't have to wait long as I secured two Little Blue Herons ( Egretta caerulea ) and a Pied-billed Grebe ( Podilymbus podiceps ) on Bunker Pond, as well as a Blue-winged Teal ( Anas discors ) on the nearby ponds. The skies and bushes were filled with the sounds of nature. Overhead migrating raptors like Ospreys ( Pandion haliaetus ), an immature Bald Eagle ( Haliaeetus leucocephalus ), and soaring Turkey Vultu...