Aug 25 2010
Let me start by answering my own question posed in the title of this post: are birders really buying 92% of duck stamps sold? Almost assuredly not. I hate it when people manipulate factoids to advance an agenda and I don’t want to sink to that level. But I’m willing to take a little heat [...]
Aug 14 2010
From left: Sue Gruver, Forrest Rowland, Ruth Draper, Sharon Lynn, Brecon, me on the first day the Cape Henlopen Hawk Watch counted over 1,000 raptors: 29 Sep 2008 Summer. It goes so fast. I find myself taking every opportunity to eat the fresh tomatoes, corn and watermelon that are at their best now. Well, nearly [...]
Jul 21 2010
I have bit of news and some eye candy to add to the story of Delaware’s first Brown Booby, which came aboard the Thelma Dale IV on Monday, 19 July 2010 and rode the boat back into the harbor at Lewes, whereupon it was taken to Tri-State Bird Rescue. First, some eye candy. Here’s a [...]
Jul 20 2010
Whenever the display on my cell phone reads, “Frank Rohrbacher,” I have a very predictable Pavlovian response. I feel the adrenaline start to flow and I instantly throttle up to the birder equivalent of DEFCON 2. Of course, Frank will call about ordinary matters from time to time, but variable-schedule reinforcement is the most potent [...]
Jun 08 2010
NB: For the best video experience, I highly recommend hitting “play,” then clicking on the 360p button that appears in the lower right of the video player and choosing 480p instead. Also click the adjacent box with the four outward pointing arrows to go full screen. At the end, just hit the same box, which [...]
Mar 09 2010
No big backstory here…just a beautiful little bird, singing his heart out, an image that seems appropriate for the gorgeous early spring weather we are having today, though it will still be another month before Prairie Warblers return to our area. The buzzy, ascending song of Prairie Warbler is the first “fancy” song I remember [...]
Mar 08 2010
The second of my photos that appears in the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America is one of the big ones, spanning two pages, a treatment afforded only 3 shots in each book. It appears across pages ii & iii. But the photograph has to share space–lots of space–with two text boxes [...]
Sep 12 2009
I was out walking the dog around 9:30 AM this morning when I got a phone call from Forrest Rowland, who is once again scanning the skies over the Cape Henlopen Hawk Watch. He said that he had heard from Derek Stoner that the Delmarva Ornithological Society group Derek was leading on their annual Cape May field [...]
Jul 24 2009
Self-portrait by Matthew Sarver Good news for all of you who enjoy well-written, thoughtful, authoritative, and nicely-illustrated blog posts (and if that’s you, what are you doing here?). My buddy Matt Sarver has been cultivating his web presence, including launching a new blog, appropriately called The Modern Naturalist. Matt’s a great birder, naturally, but he’s also [...]
Jul 12 2009
Approaching Fowler Beach this morning, I glanced at the interpretive sign declaring it a Horseshoe Crab sanctuary. I thought back to the height of the crab spawning in May and thought how much more placid things felt now, as the frenzied activity of spring slowly melted into the comparative quiet of midsummer. It would be [...]
