Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

It will be two more weeks until my time in Pennsylvania ends, but before that arrives, I've been actively trying to add more species to my year list in an attempt to beat my year birding record from last year (223 spp.) With the addition of two American Coots ( Fulica americana ) this afternoon during a visit to Peace Valley Park in Doylestown, I now have 211 species on the list thus far. While I'm confident I can beat my record from last year, the nail biting finish is fast approaching and I can only hope that the sea ducks, LBJs, and auks I need, manifest themselves before December ends. Still it's been an amazing year and I've been clicking away whenever I get the chance (both in terms of photography and blogging). I decided to walk around Lake Galena (the main attraction in Peace Valley Park) today for two reasons. This past week I've been using a pedometer app to track how far I walk during the day at work and for the most part, I get about 10,000 steps a day...

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...

As I come to know this small corner of Pennsylvania over the next two months or so, I decided last weekend that enough was enough and that while my iPhone could try with all its might to take good photos, it didn't actually compare to a good digital camera. So last Saturday, I returned from a nearby Best Buy with a Canon Power Shot SX510 and started shooting. While my first and foremost love of the natural world is rooted in bird life, I tried to take some photos of other things to get a feel for the landscape as well. Ultimately though, I took mainly bird photos and that's what I'll be sharing here. I got the chance to visit Peace Valley Park in New Britain, PA for a third time this past weekend. The main reason for my visit was to try and seek out a Red-headed Woodpecker ( Melanerpes erythrocephalus ) that had been spotted near Angler's Pier on the NW side of Galena Lake. As bad luck would have it, the bird didn't appear before me, so I took photos of other, m...