Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

As fall draws closer, migration is in full swing with birds, dragonflies, and butterflies traveling hundreds of miles to reach wintering grounds along the coast, towards the interior, or even further south towards Mexico and South America. At the Trinity Center, some of our most noticeable migrants are yellow-bellied sapsuckers, cloudless sulphur butterflies and,  green darner dragonflies . Animal migration is triggered by several factors including seasonal changes, food availability, and reproductive needs. During this time of year, I keep my eyes peeled to look out for these incredible travelers, allowing me to catch a glimpse of an important event in Nature’s calendar. Sapsucker and bluebird at Stony Brook-Millstone Preserve in Pennington, NJ. Photo by me.  Yellow-bellied sapsuckers ( Sphyrapicus varius ) are common winter residents to the pine forests of coastal North Carolina. While their name is certainly creative, they don’t exactly suck sap. As a member of t...

It's amazing how spending a little time outside can revitalize your sense of well being. For me, nothing makes me happier than when I'm birding. Being able to spend time with birds is necessary for my well being as a human being, they speak to my very soul. That said, after spending a week on the Bogue Banks, I knew I needed to start finding hotspots to check out. While the Outer Banks is a prime migratory stopover for shorebirds, getting there can be difficult especially if you haven't gotten a handle on the ferry schedule yet. For my purposes starting out, the closest and easiest to reach was the public beach access at Bogue Inlet in Emerald Isle, NC. Finding the beach access was easy enough, but finding adequate parking was trickier. Like many towns with beachfront property, parking on the sides of roads is prohibited with limited opportunities to find free parking unless you are within proximity of a business district or public beach lot. Initially, the only lot I c...