Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

We are fortunate in Central New York to have so many natural areas within which to walk around and explore. Whether it be the many waterfalls of Ithaca or the pleasant expanse of forest and fields at the many conservation areas dotted around the countryside between the built up areas of the state, we are truly spoiled for choice. I had the fortune of walking around a lovely patch of meadow and forest with my parents a few hours ago. While my mum noted that it seemed that "only mad dogs and Englishmen would be out in the midday sun", we walked on nonetheless. The property was called the Camillus Forest Unique Area and is located 20 minutes from Marcellus up NE Townline Road. The property has a series of trails running along a large interconnected meadow with a huge deciduous forest at the top of the hill. Several times as we were walking near the forest, we were treated to some wonderful views of Camillus and beyond. The plant life was diverse and abundant, mix...

I was visited by a mourning dove ( Zenaida macroura ) this morning. No doubt as soon as some of you read the title, you were annoyed as any proper birder would be. Upon reading it, the thought; "it's pronounced "mourning" not "morning"!", flashed through your mind with unforgivable zeal. Perhaps I'm being too presumptive. Maybe. Mourning doves are a common backyard bird found over most of the United States and are one of two species of pigeon that can be found in New York state. The other is the ubiquitous rock pigeon (or dove depending on the age of your field guide) that I see everyday stealing grain from the ducks on the zoo's main pond or soaring v-winged over the skyscrapers and ruined factory buildings of downtown Syracuse. While we've been visited by pigeons every once in a while, the bird that visited this morning was a juvenile. The plumage on this bird is scalloped and a little unkempt. It likely hatched out a month ago and ...

Memorial Day weekend has come and gone and I thought I'd share a quick update about some of my findings over the past week. I wanted to talk about plovers in particular. Why you might ask?  One reason is that they are ridiculously adorable. Another is that they are wonderfully talkative with their piping voices. Despite their notoriety and popularity with birders, shorebirds in particular are vulnerable to declines in population due to sharp declines in suitable migration stopover sites, food depletion, and in some cases, illegal hunting on their wintering grounds. Fortunately for us, many shorebirds species are still very common and the two birds I want to talk about in this posting are probably some of the more recognizable of the shorebirds (depending on where you live). They are the Killdeer ( Charadrius vociferus ) and the Piping Plover ( C. melodus ). I've talked about Piping Plovers on here before, but I don't think I've ever specifically focused on either my o...

On this hot summer evening, I realize I haven't posted anything in nearly two weeks and figured that tonight would be a good a time as any to do so. I have started work at Drumlin once more and I'm looking forward to the start of camp as well. The past few weeks have been busy and full of fun and learning. Fun because of all the returning counselors I know from prior years and learning because of staff training. Other than that, I managed to head to Portcon Maine this year and snap some photos of local bird life in the vacant lot nearby. The jovial songs of House Finches ( Haemorhous mexicanus ) rang out over the parking lot. The pleading cries of a pair of Killdeer ( Charadrius vociferus ) drew us close to what we suspected was their nest site. An American Goldfinch ( Spinus tristis ) surveys cosplayers on a beautiful Sunday morning. A honeybee ( Apis spp. ) feeds on the ornamental mint ( Mentha spp. ) flowers planted outside the Double Tree. Also, I rec...

Happy Easter all! I was up in Massachusetts this weekend visiting with my family and then the rest of the time with my girlfriend, Alison, and her family. As of this post, I got five year birds for my year listing project (I'm hoping to break 223 species this year) and got some fantastic photos of our escapade as well. My girlfriend works as the coastal waterbird monitor at Allen's Pond Wildlife Sanctuary in South Dartmouth where she monitors and assists with the protection of endangered shorebirds such as Piping Plovers ( Charadrius melodus ) and Least Terns ( Sternula antillarum ). The terns haven't shown up yet, but the plovers have, and they were busy courting and setting up scrapes when we arrived. We participated in a Saturday morning bird walk with several members of the Paskamansett Bird Club on Little Beach and the nearby marshland. As we left, we walked through a small field with nest boxes erected for the bluebirds and returning Tree Swallows ( Tachycineta bico...

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...