Monthly Archives: January 2024

Two Code 4s!!!

After a storm delay at the beginning of our trip south (for real, not the fake kind that United Airlines likes to invent), today we made our way from Sturbridge, Massachusetts to Ocean City, Maryland. This, however, was not a non-stop drive as we had planned layovers in New Jersey and Delaware to look for […]

Read More

Speaking of Bird Names

On November 1, in a controversial move, the American Ornithological Society announced that birds will no longer be named after people. For instance, the Wilson’s Warbler, named after the acclaimed 19th century Ornithologist “James Wilson” might be called the Black-capped Warbler or something similar. Meanwhile, the Ring-necked Duck . . . which really only has […]

Read More

Great Gray Owl at the Sax-Zim Bog

Ingrid and I are closing out the second and final day of our visit to the Sax-Zim Bog by sitting in front of a warm fire at the Alesches’ Accommodations, a lovely lodge located within the Bog. There are a number of other birders here and all are talking about everyone’s most sought after bird, […]

Read More

Northern Hawk Owl in the Sax-Zim Bog

Greetings from the legendary Sax-Zim Bog … a location for birders equivalent to Wrigley Field for baseball fans or the Augusta National for golfers. The bog is 300+ square miles of mixed spruce, aspen, tamarack and pine forest, diverse animal life (wolves, deer and moose) and of course birds. And it is cold.  Damn cold. […]

Read More

Short-eared Owl

Ingrid recorded this Short-eared Owl, right about sunset in Richmond, Maine today. Note how the bird flies like a moth . . . in one direction and then abruptly in another. We saw two Short-eared Owl this evening over this expansive agricultural field. We’ve observed that these birds tend to chase each other for a […]

Read More

I Got a New Gull Friend

Ingrid and I drove back to Maine from New Jersey today, a bit giddy after seeing a Red-flanked Bluetail yesterday.  Instead of driving directly home, we made a couple detours hoping to see a few more birds. Our first stop was an industrial park pond where we had seen an unusual goose at sunset the […]

Read More

Red-flanked Bluetail

About a month ago a birding friend invited me to join a roadtrip to New Jersey to see a rare RED-FLANKED BLUETAIL.   The Bluetail is an Eurasian bird that can be found from Great Britain over to Taiwan.  Over the years, there have been a few reports in North America (Alaska and California) . […]

Read More

And So It Begins . . . With a little help from Owls

Last night Ingrid and I travelled to Newburyport, Massachusetts to celebrate the New Year (ok, we were asleep before 10:00 pm) and to pre-proposition ourselves for Day 1 of our USA Big Year.  We had learned where a difficult to find Long-eared Owl was roosting in eastern Massachusetts, and we were eager to add that […]

Read More

Copyright 2024