Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

In three days, it will be the final week of 2016. While many will see it as the end of a trying and packed year, I see this final week as an opportunity. As of tonight, I am 11 species away from my goal of seeing 200 species of birds for the year. Since graduating from college in 2012, I have always tried to observe (both visually and audibly) over 200 species of birds per year. That year, I reached 228 species. In 2013 and 2014, I managed to skip over the line with 225 and 221 species respectfully, but started the decline into the high hundreds last year with 171 total species. In those three previous years, my career has taken me from Connecticut to Massachusetts, back to Connecticut, down to New Jersey, over to Pennsylvania, back to Massachusetts, briefly up to Maine, and finally to Central New York where I currently reside. From a resume building standpoint, this is pretty impressive, but as a birder with a achievable goal, this was extremely disappointing. My uprooting from Ma...

The sound of the ocean slapping the rocks of the causeway heralded the arrival of another car to the rutted parking lot. Over the sea wall, Horseneck Beach with its daredevil para-sailers danced over the distant swells while gulls dark and light swirled over the mile long spit jutting into Buzzard's Bay. Alison and I stepped out of the car and looked around. It was good to be home.* As we stood on the rocky shores of Gooseberry Neck in Westport, Massachusetts, we watched as sanderlings, scampered back and forth along the sands while being chaperoned by herring gulls. We sat on a few boulders that lead down the eastern side of the neck and watched the relay. The sanderlings would run towards the retreating surf to pick at the minute crustaceans and periwinkles that were caught in the pull of water and sand. After busily picking at the sands for only a few moments, they were chased back by the rushing waves to begin their relay again.  The gulls, being far less particula...

As the dog days of summer trudge on, those of us in the world of adult responsibilities grind along too. We have jobs, appointment, and lives to lead regardless of how hot the weather and how inviting the sunshine is outside. Despite this, there is a familiar sound that punctuates the noise and grind that surrounds our everyday lives. Even as I've grown more and more used to life here in the city, noise still finds a way to puncture through. Recently I was listening to an episode of Roman Mars's podcast,  99% Invisible  where he discussed the difference between noise and sound. Noise is a sound or series of sounds that are annoying or disturbing to one's overall experience of the world, while a sound itself was the expulsion of air waves of a certain pitch and frequency that we recognize coming from a specific source, regardless of the impression it has on our experience of the surrounding world.  There is certainly no doubt that cities are noise centers. Rumbling tra...

There are both Glaucous and Iceland Gulls in this picture, but which is which? Can you tell the difference? After spending my birthday weekend birding with Alison, we decided to to hit up Jodrey Fish Pier in Gloucester in order to locate the Thick-billed Murre ( Uria lomvia ) that had been spotted in recent days. We came up short on that front, but came across a fairly uncommon winter sight. This lead not only to seeing both our first Glaucous Gulls ( Larus hyperboreus ), but also how they differed plumage-wise, from the nearby Iceland Gulls ( L. glaucoides ). After snapping a few pictures, I was initially at a loss to try and identify them. Since I'm newish to gull ID (my favorite plumage is that of a Ring-billed Gull ( L. delawarensis ) in its 1st winter plumage), I looked through my preferred guides and came up with a diagnosis. After browsing through the basic guides provided by Kaufman (least helpful) and National Geographic: Eastern Region (somewhat helpful), I con...

Just what is "geocaching"? It's one of those new outdoor hobbies that has sprung up in the 21st century alongside flying remote controlled drones or bow hunting Asian carp ( Hypophthalmichthys molitrix ) from a speeding motorboat. Well perhaps it isn't as crazy as the last one, but it does involve searching for Tupperware containers in the woods containing a logbook and small tradeable objects that can only be located by using a GPS unit. That's the basic gist of it anyway. I first learned how to geocache while working as an intern at the Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association in Pennington, NJ. My fellow teacher naturalists would go out with local girl scout groups on our 930 acre property to look for the various caches which could range from the size of a shoebox to a test tube or even smaller. I've even seen some artificial caches that are modeled to look like rocks, pine cones, and even a golf ball. After using the GPS unit to get close to the cac...

This Saturday past, I participated in my very first Christmas Bird Count with my girlfriend Alison, and was excited to get many photos of some of the birds we spied. Our first stop was to a local woman's farm in Dartmouth. We helped out by covering ground that had yet to be covered by the owners, a mother and son team with a tenacity for birding and listing. Mystery moss growing on many of the trees above. I would like to know what it might be... A late female Eastern Towhee ( Pipilo erythrothalmus ) hiding out in some briars near some old farming equipment. Milkweed ( Asclepias spp. ) was a common sight throughout the property. Their importance is paramount not only in healthy meadow ecology, but also to that of the Monarch butterfly ( Danaus plexippus ). Despite looking wet, this Woolly Bear Caterpillar ( Pyrrharctica isabella ) might yet survive to become a moth in the spring. As prevalent as another bird with "house" in its name, these western finc...

While I was on my way to Parker River on Monday, I paid a visit to Heard's Pond in Wayland, MA. Other than the gulls and solitary Mute Swan ( Cygnus olor ), what caught my eye initially was a female Common Merganser ( Mergus merganser ) swimming in the unfrozen section of the pond. My eye was then drawn to the left with a large flock of Mallards ( Anas platyrhynchos ) and some mingling American Black Ducks ( A. rubripes ). But near those birds was a duck I was surprised to see. What appeared to be a female Northern Shoveler ( A. clypeata ) has been causing me confusion ever since. After consulting Sibley, Nat Geo, and online sources, I'm fairly convinced that it is either female or an immature bird. Only fairly convinced however... There's part of me that wonders if it could be a hybrid too. But that seems a stretch. If anyone has a clue about what it might be, please comment below. Update: After emailing a former colleague of mine, he's confirmed to me t...

Round three of the Babe Ruth of Ornithology starts off this week with Alexander Wilson vs. Edward Howe Forbush. I hesitate to guess who'll win this round (but not really) Lets do this!! More birds named after him than Audubon could shake a boom stick at! Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) can easily be called the father of American Ornithology. After moving to America with his nephew in 1794, legend has it that the first bird he saw when he was in the New World was a Red-headed Woodpecker ( Melanerpes erythrocephalus ). While he always had a touch of intrigue towards the natural world, it was a famous naturalist named William Bartram, that gave him a passion for ornithology. It is Wilson that, more so than Audubon himself, has had more associated with him with regards to birds than any other American ornithological figure. As the aforementioned father of ornithology in America, his name is remembered with such species as Wilson's Storm-Petrel ( Oceanites oceanicus ), Wilson...