After listening to his melodious chorus for many long minutes, I decided to videotape this cheery Northern Mockingbird. He surprised me by suddenly becoming quiet, looking curiously right and left, up and down. I wondered if he was looking at me! And then, after about half a minute, he started to chirp a new medley. Mockingbirds are great […]
Green Herons are such characters, so fun to photograph! I decided to write this post in honor of my husband’s really cool Green Heron captures this week. He snapped the featured photo above of a heron peering out intently across the pond. . . When all of a sudden, his new Green Heron friend started […]
My goal this year is to learn more about the very small birds that come to our wetlands. Some, like the male Painted Bunting above at the preserve’s feeder, are easy – his brilliant multi-colored feathers are so distinctive that he’s hard to miss. The Ovenbird, the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and the Black & White Warbler were three new, distinctive little […]
Blue Jays are so common throughout the eastern and central United States and southern Canada that I tend to forget that not everyone is familiar with them. The Audubon site is a rich source of information about the history, behavior, and many varied calls of this showy and raucous bird. Blue Jays are known to be […]
Last year, advocates for a family of Burrowing Owls that had made their home in a local school athletic field were successful in protecting them. The burrows were roped off and marked, and the district re-scheduled games scheduled for that field to a new location.This year the Burrowing Owls are back! They are a ‘species of special concern’, “protected from harassment and/or […]
Did you ever have one of those moments when something happens so quickly that you have no idea what settings you have on your camera – you just point and shoot?Well, this morning, I was chatting with some folks about a Wood Stork in the pond, when all of a sudden I spotted this Great […]
The mornings and evenings are a bit cooler and less humid these days, and some migrating birds have arrived in our area. But the wetland birds’ courting and breeding season that brings so many visitors has really not yet begun. Lots of marsh plants are still in bloom, including these delicate Fireflags dangling over the ponds, and […]
You can hear the unmistakable, loud hammering of a busy Pileated Woodpecker from quite a distance. As soon as I got out of the car at the refuge, I knew he was there, and followed the sound all the way from the parking lot to the woods several hundred yards away. There he was – hard at work! […]
The Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) by King Solomon was read in synagogues around the world this week during the holiday of Sukkot. Kohelet is well known for its verses in Chapter 3 which include. . . “there is a time for every purpose under heaven” (3:1). As I look around at the inexplicable wonders of nature on […]
The small wonders of nature never cease to amaze me. My husband always reminds me to be open to noticing . . . . You never know what you’ll be privileged to see. Sometimes we find hidden little surprises in our photos only when we get them home and open up the image on the […]
