Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

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...

I was recently poking around the Mass Audubon Bird Conservation staff page located here and was reading over Matt Kamm's blurb when I read the final sentence and had a thought. The sentence goes as follows. "He has been an enthusiastic birder since the age of eight, and his nemesis bird is the Short-tailed Hawk." The first part of that sentence isn't important. The concept of a "nemesis bird" hadn't really caught my imagination since I already had a list of likely species I hadn't yet seen and was using that as a benchmark in my quest to reach the 300. However, this new concept has intrigued me and made me wonder what species have seemed to elude me. However, the answer to that has changed so many times that it hardly seems worth it to determine what it is. For most of the summer my main target was the Black-bellied Whistling Duck ( Dendrocygna autumnalis ) spotted at Great Meadows NWR in Concord, MA. When I did finally sight it (with pictures a...