LINK LIZARD SATURDAYS

LINK LIZARD- wHaT I fOuNd iNtErEsTiNg tHis wEeK

http://blogs.courierpostonline.com/wingedwonders/

http://www.nps.gov/findapark/index.htm

http://tinyurl.com/inspiring-6th-grader-s-words

http://tinyurl.com/shadecoffee

http://tinyurl.com/folgers1

http://tinyurl.com/folgers2

LINK LIZARD SATURDAYS

LINK LIZARD- wHaT I fOuNd iNtErEsTiNg tHis wEeK

http://tinyurl.com/memorial-day-notes

http://tinyurl.com/May-18-1929-the-day-the-birds

http://tinyurl.com/duck-pad-in-DE

http://tinyurl.com/to-tree-or-not-to-tree

http://tinyurl.com/Feds-managing-migratory-birds

http://tinyurl.com/fledging-birders-challenge

http://tinyurl.com/environmental-gen-amnesia

http://tinyurl.com/BoyScouts-Bird-Study-Badge

http://tinyurl.com/I-feel-smaller-than-a-red-knot

New Egypt Day Festival and friends

We here at Vagrants, Vagabonds, and migrant Visitor birds met and greeted hundreds of people at our Bluebird awareness table this past Saturday, May 16th, in Plumsted township.  It was a beautiful day and we met some beautiful people of the community. 

What was surprising or not too surprising was the amount of people that showed such great interest in our town’s Eastern Bluebird population and the bewilderment on the faces of some when we told them of the existence of these bright balls of blue in our area.  One of our driving passions is to reach people, children in particular, and encourage that curiosity and new found interest in bird watching.  At the festival we raffled off 2 copies of Kenn Kauffman’s bird field guides( English and Spanish versions) and a Bluebird basket containing a Bluebird book by the Stokes.

After the close of the festival we determined the winners and contacted one of the families that had won the Bluebird basket.  Their daughter Lawron had won the basket and my wife had asked them, “If they wanted to see a Bluebird at Colliers Mills WMA?”  We gained so much inspiration and satisfaction from the experience of sharing the afternoon bird walk with this family of 4. 

 The Bluebirds weren’t hard to find and neither were the smiles on the two young girls’ faces as they got up close views of nature and built lifetime memories of first ever sightings of our Avian friends.  One of my favorite quotes is from author Richard Louv, “We only value what we know and what we love.”  That’s plain common sense.  But seeing how much a brief walk in the woods can do for a family is inspirational; shared experiences, learned passions and respect, and lifetime memories.  The lesson of the day is to go birding, and take a friend or in our case a whole new family of friends.  A brief list of our highlight birds are below.

Location: Colliers Mills WMA

Observation date: 5/16

Notes: Sunny late afternoon.

Life birds for new found friends: 6

Eastern Bluebird

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Phoebe

Great Blue Heron

Baltimore Oriole

Life bird for me even: 1

Common Nighthawk-flying in a clear sunny sky over the lake

LINK LIZARD SATURDAYS

LINK LIZARD SATURDAYS- wHaT I fOuNd iNtErEsTiNg tHis wEeK

http://tinyurl.com/piping-plovers-video

http://tinyurl.com/Why-Hunting-isn-t-all-Bad

http://tinyurl.com/No-Child-Left-Inside

I and the Bird #100: The NBN Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence

If you have been reading my blog most likely your interests are bird related.  But I bet that you read more than one bird blog and that you also enjoy all things outdoors . 

Well I have took the plunge and participated in the latest craze of bird blog carnivals.  Which is basically a fun place in the World Wide Web that holds a carnival and all of us Bird bloggers submit posts to be viewed by all who attend the carnival site. 

Lately my timing has been great and joining this year’s I and the Bird blog carnival is no exception.  It is the 100th edition of the carnival. 

“I and the Bird is the blog carnival devoted to wild birds and birding. This biweekly showcase of the best bird writing on the web celebrates the interaction of human and avian. I and the Bird also happens to be, now that Tanged Bank has run its course, the oldest active nature-related blog carnival.”

So sit back and click to new fields of vision.  The carnival is a place to discover new like minded individuals who share your passion for our avian creatures and the culture that surrounds them.  Take the plunge and visit: 

http://natureblognetwork.com/blog/i-and-the-bird-100-the-nbn-award-for-outstanding-achievement-in-the-field-of-excellence/

Pueo Hawaiian Owl Inspires Passion

When I tell people I enjoy bird watching most of the time I get puzzled looks and than the inevitable question.  How did someone like you get into birding?  That’s a two part question really.  The story about what bird sparked my life long passion for our avian lives and how did a guy like me consider himself a birder? 

I’ll answer the second part of that question first.  Most look at me and other birders with a stereotypical image of what a birdwatcher looks and acts like.  Since the 1960’s in general, the environmental movement has been gaining speed and it’s image has broaden to almost every walk of life.  Being an environmentalist is trendy and translates to a hip and young image of someone who calls themselves one.  The same isn’t so true for the birding movement.  Both movements are rooted in the same consciousness, but we birders are still described as “bird nerds”.

I always feel like my man card is being challenged.  Birders haven’t been listed on the site http://artofmanliness.com/, but with people out there like Pete Dunne and Kenn Kaufmann I think were breaking down the walls, little by little.  So to break the stereotype here on my web blog I will provide proof that myself, as a birder, do not fit the stereotype and that it is manly to watch birds(or womanly we aren’t sexists).

• I love Jerry Reed and own his record albums to this day.
• On my mantle in my dining room sits a 2 foot arm wrestling trophy.
• Served in the US Marines, honor graduate of their NCO leadership school.
• Ran the Honolulu Marathon in less than 2 days.
• Drank beer in Thailand while eating fried frog legs.
• When I’m not curling beer I curl 60lb dumb bells in the gym.
• Completed a Rocky Gap Adventure Race
• Hiked all of the New York Appalachian trail with my dog Mika, who recently passed on. God bless my dog, I miss him.
• I took classes to get my NJ bow hunting licenses and even gutted a deer.
• I play Texas Holdem for fun and can push all in against an opponent holding only a 2d6c.
• I’ve worn a tank top printed with the words,”Klockleaner” to a party.

Now that I’m off of the defensive I can continue the conversation with a more heartfelt and nostalgic tone.  Most birders remember one bird that light the fire for their passion with bird watching.  I’ve heard some strange stories from other birders about how their interest in avian lives was cultivated.  My story isn’t that unusual but it is where it all began.

I was stationed in Marine Corp Base Hawaii, Kaneohe bay, HI, for 3 years.  During which I hiked every trail there was on the island of Oahu twice, once solo and the second time around I took a friend for photos.   My only regret is that I did not catch the birding bug earlier than I did.

During one of those weekend hikes I discovered an owl by accident.  I was somewhere on the Windward side of the island hiking when I turned on the trail near a small grove of pines and out dropped an owl.  Or least to the best of my limited experience an owl.  I never did get a bird book or binoculars until I got back to the mainland and was discharged from the Marines. 

In retrospect I believe the owl that started my fascination with birds was the Pueo.  This adds a layer of mysticism to my story.  The Pueo Hawaiian owl is a bird of legend.  It is called the Protector.  One part of it’s legend is that a man named Kapoi stole an owls’ eggs and had wrapped them in leaves and was going to cook them in a traditional ground oven when the Pueo owl swooped down and asked the man for them back.  The man did not have fish and wanted to cook the eggs anyway.  Then the owl said, "Kapoi, you are heartless. You have no sorrow for me and you care only about yourself." Kapoi was embarrassed. Feeling sorry for the owl, he said, "Come and get your eggs."The man finally coincided and gave the owl back it’s eggs. There is more to the legend but here is where I believe the hand of destiny can be seen.

The Pueo story, that peeked my curiosity, is one of man’s repeated disturbances in nature and our ability to correct our mistakes.  Our insight into what is right and wrong and the decisions we make effects who we are and how our world will prevail.

Looking back I can see how my own story can gain inspiration from Kapoi’s trials.  I too feel sorry for the owl and all other birds and animals that are endangered or threatened by man’s hands.  Like the owl became the man Kapoi’s protector that same owl in Hawaii became my protector and opened up a world I did not see or know held so much beauty.  This portion of the original question,” How did someone like you get into birding?” usually brings out the Bird nerd in me.  But each day, living in good stewardship of the lands that I walk and with my interactions with others, I believe the birds that inspired me can inspire all of us. 

“It’s May you say”, spouted the Blue Jay

I squeezed in some birding this weekend, in between the left over April rain drops. Friday afternoon I took the opportunity to do some birding before my daughter’s softball game at a new spot in Plumsted Township.

After checking out some overgrown yard terrain and only turning up the usual suspects; field sparrow, catbird, eastern phoebe, and a loud ovenbird, I headed to the woods. Before I crossed the road I got rewarded with great views of two foraging white eyed vireos. This was a good sign that my willingness to trudge along in ducky weather was an ideal from the head of Zeus. The rest of the birds seen were more than obliging to linger in my Bausch & Lomb binoculars.

As I walked along old cranberry bogs I had a funny but slightly scary thought. I was walking wide eyed scanning the trees and fields afar or occasionally skyward not really taking notice of my footsteps on the trail. On such a sunny afternoon I really should be more careful in taking notice of what may lie on these greenways. Never know when a reptile may materialize under foot. It also never hurts to study the butterflies that awkwardly crisscross the native flora. If anyone believes that birdwatchers are a rare breed, try to follow a butterfly’s path thru a lens, now that takes skill and extreme levels of patience.

Encouraged by the new arrivals of spring migrant birds I was determined to set out early Saturday morning. In anticipation of the messy weather I got up early before the sunrise to get some birding in. I can’t remember who the weather person was that I listened to, but the rain was not going to hold off till the afternoon like they promised. In spite of the drizzle there were still a lot of voices in the woods. Singing male feathered songsters perched high and low in trees of all sorts.

That same small island of trees near the road provided another great find. I listened to a melodious song and finally zeroed in on the Purple finches whose rosy red colors were not dulled by the spring rain. Two other highlights of the trip were a pair of Solitary Sandpipers and a singing male Prairie Warbler. I was surprised by a lone Chimney Swift who joined the swallows (Barn and Tree) for the breakfast buffet of flying insects over one of the bogs. There were great views, not so great weather, but again uplifting intimate shared moments with the avian community.

Location: Plumsted Township, New Egypt

Observation date: 5/1-5/2

Notes: Friday evening was clear and sunny; Saturday morning was on and off drizzle.

Number of species: 41

American Goldfinch

American Robin

Belted Kingfisher

Black-and-White Warbler

Black-capped Chickadee

Blue Jay

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Brown-headed Cowbird

Canada goose

Chimney Swift

Chipping Sparrow

Common Yellowthroat

Downy Woodpecker

Eastern Bluebird

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Phoebe

Eastern Towhee

Field Sparrow

Gray Catbird

Great Blue Heron

Great Crested Flycatcher

House Wren

Killdeer

Lesser Yellow Legs

Mallard

Northern Cardinal

Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)

Ovenbird

Prairie Warbler

Purple Finch

Red-winged Blackbird

Savanna Sparrow

Solitary Sandpiper

Swamp Sparrow

Tree Swallow

Tufted Titmouse

Turkey Vulture

White Eyed Vireo

White-throated Sparrow

Wood duck

Wood Thrush