Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

Once in a while it is good to take a break and this past weekend was no exception. Alison and I planned on visiting northwest Ohio for the annual Biggest Week in American Birding festival. The last time we graced the shore of Lake Erie for some of the best birding in the country was in 2013 while Alison had been working in Columbus as a songbird technician. On a whim, she and her fellow techs decided to visit the festival to check out the birds. Her experience was so amazing that she nagged me into driving the eight hours from New Jersey (where I was working as a teacher naturalist at the time) to see the exquisite jewels that flitted from branch and twig. As we arrived in the darkness of Friday morning to our motel (which I will be calling the Rat's Nest for sake of brevity and because I don't intend to get into a Yelp flame war with the owners). Needless to say, the place was less than we had hoped for. While the continental breakfast at most motels leaves little to be desi...

As my last weekend in Pennsylvania draws to a close, I decided on Friday night to go birding somewhere. But as I searched the local hotspots for migrants (which have since been growing thin as the main songbird species such as warblers have all but gone), I couldn't find an ideal spot. I had mentioned to friends at work about my interest about going to Hawk Mountain, but recent counts suggested that the "good" species had already filed through. So as I clicked on the lists and links of eBird, my eye was drawn to local sightings of Rusty Blackbirds ( Euphagus carolinus ), a particularly hard bird to locate due to their scarcity (their population has declined 99% in the past 50 years or so) and habit of sticking to small flocks of their own kind. A park about 45 minutes north of Horsham had hosted the birds within the past week and seemed to be worth a look. The report also detailed the presence of a juvenile Brant ( Branta bernicla ) that had been grazing on the shore of...