Who doesn’t love a Big Day? Any excuse to get out and count birds in the name of science is a worthwhile cause in my book. eBird has been orchestrating Global Big Day events each May since 2015, an international effort to record as many of the world’s species as possible within a 24 hour period. Last fall, the Cornell-based … Read More
Snowy Egret in Lancaster County!
The beginning of fall migration 2016 is treating the Susquehanna River corridor nicely, with multiple rare waders making their presence known in Lancaster County – three juvenile Little Blue Herons were visible form the Falmouth River Access, a juvenile Snowy Egret is at the Riverfront Park Access, and a juvenile Cattle Egret continues at Conewago Wetlands. These three species are rare, but … Read More
Heron Hybrid – Merritt Island NWR, Florida
On March 25th, a very interesting heron was photographed by two birders at Merrrit Island NWR, near Titusville on the Atlantic Coast of Florida. Ann Gaillard and Joyce Stefancic both photographed the heron shown below independently of each other along the Black Point Wildlife Drive, and allowed me permission to show their photos on this post. Study these first two … Read More
Provincetown Birding Part 1
Ian Gardner, Josh Lefever, and I woke up on the morning of November 19th to the calls of Virginia Rails. We had set up camp the night before near High Head, near Provincetown – the tip of the Cape Cod peninsula. As we crawled out of our sleeping bags and into the cool morning air, birds were all over. Seven species … Read More
Cibola NWR – 7/27/11
This morning, Anna and I conducted Yellow-billed Cuckoo surveys throughout the Cornfield Nature Trail area at Cibola NWR. We were able to find 51 species of birds, one of which would have been a new state bird for both of us, but only Anna saw it; an adult Osprey. Other highlights included an immature White-tailed Kite that was perched with … Read More
Desert Shorebirding!
A few of the cuckoos that we fitted with radio transmitters have gone missing, so this morning, Anna and I drove around to all of our cuckoo sites to search for them using our car-mounted radio-receiver. This ‘cuckoo-finder’, as we call it, has two yagi antennae’s, that work in unison to be able to pick up a cuckoo’s radio telemetry … Read More
First Week of Flammulated Owl Surveys!
This past week instead of searching for curlew nests, my coworker Oly Olson and I went to southeastern Idaho to begin the first week of surveys for Flammulated Owls. Anna stayed behind to keep an eye on the curlews and search for nests. Oly and I visited some really amazing places and this week of traveling around southeast Idaho really … Read More