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...

Earlier in the week, I briefly discussed the concept of a "nemesis bird" and stated that I hadn't yet determined if I had one due to the bewildering and ever changing status of the birds I've been seeking over the past few months. For a while this summer, it was the Black-bellied Whistling Duck ( Dendrocygna autumnalis ) at GMNWR before it turned over to the last few weeks of September when I was absolutely obsessed with warblers. After getting six species: Northern Waterthrush ( Parkesia novaboracensis ), Tennessee ( Oreothlypis peregrina ), Nashville ( Oreothlypis ruficapilla ), Magnolia ( Setophaga magnolia ), Blackpoll ( Setophaga striata ), and Black-throated Blue Warbler ( Setophaga carulescens ), I started concentrating on the small, weedy fields and community gardens near me for Lincoln's Sparrow ( Melospiza lincolnii ). After getting a Lincoln's at Lincoln Meadows (ironic) in Sudbury, I looked at my remaining list. Where could I go that would get me m...