March, 2009
Festival of the Birds at Presque Isle, Pennsylvania
Now here’s a festival I wish I could attend. On three days surrounding International Migratory Bird Day (May 9), the Festival of the Birds will take place on a small peninsula in eastern Lake Erie called Presque Isle. “Presque” is a French term meaning “almost an island.” The Isle, known as a recurving sand spit [...]
Photo Essay: Chickadee Mind Games
What goes on in a chickadee’s mind when he’s looking for a seed he previously cached? “Hmmm. It was this tree, right?” “It should be right in there…” “Yep, right…in…here.” “Wait a minute! Where is it?” “Let me try that again.” “What? No seed?” “Is it mad cow?” “Well…maybe I stashed it down there?” “Oh, [...]
First Inaugural Birding Festival at Roger Tory Peterson Institute
To celebrate the life and legacy of Roger Tory Peterson, the Roger Tory Peterson Institute will launch its inaugural annual birding festival June 4-7, 2009. The focus of the festival will be eastern North American warblers on the Allegheny Plateau. Twenty-five warblers are known to breed in the area and the festival will offer several [...]
Pilgrimage To Roger Tory Peterson Institute
The Roger Tory Peterson Institute is located in a spectacular Arts & Crafts style building on small but richly forested lot in Jamestown, NY. It features original Peterson paintings, first-edition field guides, an ornithological library, conference rooms, and collections–all housed in a space that befits the magnitude of this great naturalist. The Institute’s inaugural bird watching [...]
Raptor Rapture at Doran Road (Lima, NY)
This past winter, I volunteered to monitor Short-eared Owls at Doran Road in Lima, NY. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation is harnessing volunteer power to conduct a study of this owl at several sites in central and western New York. The objectives of the study are to document short-eared owl wintering locations in [...]
