Feb 16 2009
I’ve just begun a leading a tour to South Texas and Northeast Mexico with a group from the Delaware Nature Society. Today, we birded the eastern edge of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, covering Brownsville, South Padre Island, and Laguna Atascosa. We saw lots of nice birds, but I especially enjoyed our encounters with two [...]
Feb 04 2009
So many birderwatchers can name, without a moment’s hesitation, the bird that turned them into a birder, their encounter with it leaving them forever changed in a kind of ornithological epiphany, or birding conversion experience. Like converts of all sorts, the vast majority of birders delight in telling their personal story–the story of their spark bird. [...]
Jan 30 2009
Not exactly Skywatch Friday material, but I thought you’d enjoy these two photos, taken at opposite ends of the same night: A Great Blue Heron glows in the orange-pink evening light along Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge’s Black Point Wildlife Drive. Wow, that’s a mouthful that even a heron would take a while to gulp [...]
Oct 05 2008
If I were to say the words, “Fall Color,” what would you picture? Sugar maples in Vermont? An aspen grove in Colorado? Probably not, I would guess, a saltmarsh in Delaware. Well, here’s a shot I took on Friday (03 October): A pleasant little scene of autumn golds, but nothing that would draw busloads of [...]
Sep 24 2008
Saturday, I helped co-lead the Chincoteague field trip for the Eastern Shore Birding & Wildlife Festival. Not that the main leader, Ned Brinkley, needed any help, as it was a small group and Ned knows Virginia and its birds as well as anyone. But it was a nice chance to spend some time in the [...]
