I have a lovely simple memory of talking a walk with my dad near Saugerties, New York. My parents and sister brought up our ferociously sweet pit bull, who had bone cancer and a poor prognosis, so that I could see him again. His tiny beagle buddy tagged along. We decided to take them for […]
Thoughts on Aquariums
I am working through my thoughts on aquariums. I appreciate the research, conservation, and education sides of them. But, some questions. What percentage of people are inspired by the education components to take action? How many visitors change their behaviors or mindsets due to exhibits? Or are they just a way to bring a nature […]
Physics
A big part of growing up for me was fully understanding that physics applied to me. Yanking something, while satistfying at the moment, would either mean it would break or I would tumble backwards when it was freed. If I heard something tear when I was yanking clothes on or off, that meant that something […]
East Coast Lizards?
One time, when a new driver on the backroads in Virginia, I saw a creature with a lizard shape and size pause at the edge of the road, making its outline clear, and then run into the road. I was utterly puzzled and asked my mom how any lizards would be in Virginia. Maybe it […]
The Kirtland’s Warbler
The Kirkland’s Warbler: The story of a bird’s fight against extinction and the people who saved it by William Rapai had been gathering dust bunnies on my bookshelf for over a year. I then moved it across county lines, even after a dubious second glance that made me doubt I would ever read it. The […]
Shorebird identification….
…or the moment where you realize you are still very much a birding amateur, because shorebird identification is incredibly frustrating without an expert handy. Killdeer, check. Ones with black bands of patterns are easy enough to narrow down. Everything else is some mix of brown and white. On an urban reservoir with a small mudflat, […]
Book Review: Genius of Birds, part 1
Nothing against bestseller lists, but I’ve read some books headlined with NY Times Bestseller that have been real clunkers. (Fortunately I’ve transitioned out of my youthful habit of finishing books that I actively dislike.) The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman provided the opposite problem – I wanted to burn into my brain half of what […]
Sparrows
I’d never much considered the fact that there must be different kind of sparrows beyond house sparrow, though I knew they weren’t native, I didn’t quite know what kinds of other sparrows were around. I’ve become rather fond of native sparrows. The pink bill of a field sparrow still makes me smile. I rejoiced at […]
Underneath my feet
Walking along a beach on a calm day, snagging bits of trash—mostly straws, bottle caps, and broken fragments of hard plastic—something scuttled near my feet. I leaned over and saw what looked like the love child of a roly-poly and a gray shrimp. Its face was buried in the shattered shell of some deceased invertebrate. […]
Eyes Peeled
I’m not sure at what point I turned the corner to a full-on bird nerd. I’d always casually observed them around my parents and had definitely looked through binoculars at birds, mostly on our annual visits to Florida. I have a vague recollection of keeping my mouth shut to avoid mockery when my parents were […]
