Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

There is a small pond on the Trinity Center property I walk past everyday and is exceptionally buggy. Even when you are covered head to toe with 25% DEET bug spray, it seems to have no effect. The other day, as I rounded a bend, something lifted off from the top of a gnarled cedar. A tall bird croaked with agitation, flying away on long wings and extending a snaking neck. The bird in question was a great blue heron ( Ardea herodias ), a charismatic and recognizable marsh bird that is familiar to most people. Despite their common presence around wetlands, ponds, and rivers, I have heard them mistaken for another tall marsh bird, and are sometimes called "blue cranes". Immature great blue seen near Bogue Sound in Pine Knoll Shores, NC. Photo by me. Bird misidentification isn't a new issue. Even as naturalists and budding ornithologists like John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson were traveling the country identifying the birds they could; even they used colloquial n...

As most of you who read regularly can tell, I like to carve wood into folksy likenesses of birds. Considering 90% of my posts consist of birds, birding, bitching about birding, and so forth, this isn't much of a change of pace. However, I'm here to give a summary of how I came to be interested in wood carving and what I've created so far. It started when I was young and had bought one of my first books entitled Duck Hunting by Dick Sternberg and Jeff Simpson. While I've always had an on and off interest in waterfowling, I never really have had the opportunity to go and while I would like to at some point, I am more content to read up on the history and learn about regional decoy styles. The page that caught my eye was the decoy page and ever since, I've had a fascination with the bird in a wooden form. One of my earliest posts on here was about the critically endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper ( Eurynorhynchus pygmeus ) and how I'd made some folksy looking deco...

Of all the places I've visited in Pennsylvania, the place I keep coming back to over and over is Peace Valley Park near Doylestown. I visited several times during the early spring to try and find a Red-headed Woodpecker ( Melanerpes erythrocephalus ) that had been reported near the Angler's Pier on the southwestern side. As usual, my ability to find rare or hard to find birds was hampered by the bird not appearing before me, so eventually I gave up .Then again, the first few times I looked for it, I had gone in the wrong direction... Yesterday however, I decided to see if I could walk around the entire lake and see as many birds as possible. I started around 4:15pm and no sooner had I left my car than I noticed some swallows sitting on the wires near the Lavender Farm across the street. The chattering buzz of the Barn Swallows ( Hirundo rustica ) and twittering notes of Tree Swallows ( Tachycineta bicolor ) whirled in air above me and some alighted near a pair of smaller, bro...