Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

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...

After spending a mid March Monday afternoon birding at Montezuma NWR, I decided to head over the Beaver Lake Nature Center to see if I could find any Snows (the geese, not the egrets or the owls). I didn't luck out there, so on a whim I decided to look for the Long-eared Owls that had been reported earlier in the month. I didn't expect to see them until I heard the screaming call of a jay in the conifers by the Bog Trail. I stopped dead on the boardwalk and looked into the branches, hoping to see something. Round, yellow eyes stared back at me through the tangle of conifer boughs and bare branches. They were rimmed by a rusty orange face and gold-trimmed horns while a black beak rested below those watching eyes. I gasped with shock as I was gazing , unexpectedly, at a Long-eared Owl ( Asio otus )! I was so excited! I manically clicked away, grumbling as the dribbling rain threatened to dampen the camera lens and ruin the image. The owl continued to stare as I cleaned ...