American Birding Expo 2016

Vendors from around the world will be right here in central Ohio during the weekend of September 16-18 at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center just south of downtown Columbus on the Scioto River. I'm hoping to try out a wide variety of optics, with the hope of coming away with new bins and perhaps a spotting scope. I'll see you there.... -Tom

Help! I've got a Thrush.

Although I haven't been widely advertising this, 2010 is the first year that I'm keeping a list of the birds that I see.  Right now I sit at 100 species, and that includes a trip to Puerto Rico.  The new cool thing to do here in Ohio is to see how quickly it takes to rack up 100 birds beginning in January, and some people get that a few weeks into the new year.

This is bird #101 for my 2010 list.  It's a thrush, but which one?  I photographed this in a Amur honeysuckle bush in Kenney Park last Saturday in Columbus.  My best guess?  A hermit thrush, judging by the reddish tail, but this bird just doesn't seem to have much of an eye ring.  Help!

Tom

There She Blows!

Like most young people interested in biology from an early age, marine mammals always grabbed my attention. If you like nature, I'm not sure how they can not. I got my marine mammal fix by working at Sea World of Ohio as a teenager. It's not there anymore, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.



But dropping the whole marine mammals in captivity argument, which we could talk about forever, let's move on to the open ocean. We are fortunate enough to live in a time in the earth's history during when with two of the largest animals that have ever lived on the earth, as far as our best science tells us. To think of all the gigantic dinosaurs that once roamed around the continents, and to know that the whales of the ocean today rival them in sheer size, is fairly spectacular. And it really isn't that all that difficult to see one of these species-
one of the best ways to see whales from southern Maine is a berth on the Odyssey, a whale watch vessel that sails right from the Old Port.

Which brings us to Portland, Maine. If you've never visited, it is one of the east coast's little big cities. A major port, it boasts a mix of the very old and very new. The picture above is of the US customs house, built in 1874. It is one of my favorite buildings in Portland, and I can't seem to photograph it enough.



Portland is ultimately a port city, and the seafood that can be had along the old port is fresh and delicious. It is captured daily along the coast by people like this man, heading down to the docks to begin a day on the water.



The dock along which the tour boats park was full of people on this Friday morning. I'm glad Megan and I had a reservation. Several other people were taking harbor cruises rather than the four-hour whale watch. In my opinion, you get your best bang for your buck with a whale watch. Built in harbor cruise, sea birds, and whales. What more could you ask for?

So let's just cut to the chase. It seemed like hours (well, that's because it was two hours) but we cruised out into the ocean, at what seemed like full throttle, for a LONG time. On the way out, we saw these creatures:

Two harbor porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, a mother and calf.



Several common eiders, Somateria mollissima.


The greater shearwater, Puffinus gravis







And several northern gannets, Morus bassanus:




Then, finally, after two hours heading straight out into the Atlantic Ocean, the blow of a finback whale, Balaenoptera physalus, the world's second largest living animal, ever. And not only one, but two, a mother and her 30 foot long calf.









These animals are amazingly long- the woman's head in this shot provides great scale.




And that was our whale watching experience on the Odyssey. If you're in Portland Maine, I'd recommend it highly. $45 gets you a four hour adventure, full of whales, porpoises, pelagic birds, and the sights of Portland Harbor.

This is my contribution to the July 18th edition of "Camera Critters"

Tom

Remember Warbler Mania?

It's hard to believe that it was only about a month ago that our trees were dripping with warblers, and now, not so much. Over Memorial Day weekend spent at Little Pond, Maine, I photographed a few birds, including several warblers. Here are those images for your perusal.













To learn more about Little Pond, check out this short film I created during our time their this past May.

Tom

Killfawns to Be

Never heard of a killfawn? Well, simply put, what would a baby killdeer be? Certainly nothing other than a killfawn. One of the birds present in the gravel quarries of Marblehead are killdeer, and this mom was nesting right on the bare gravel, with only a few sprigs of spiked blazing star near her nest. Aren't those eggs precious?

They'll soon hatch, and the quarries of Marblehead will be filled with killfawns.

I'll be up on Ohio's north coast three more days this upcoming week, again censusing the Lakeside Daisy. I'm starting to see them everywhere I go, today, for example, in Huron County. But they're not Lakeside Daisies, they are only dandelions. That's what happens when the image of a plant gets burned into my brain.

Tom

Butter Butts

When we bought our new house last July, I looked up at our massive backyard bur oak and longed for spring. I hoped that the tree would drip with warblers one day. The gnarly old landmark of our street has that presence about it that I speculated would pull in migrating birds from miles around. At least, that is what I hoped and dreamed, on a hot, decidedly unbirdy Saturday in mid-summer.

We're on the backside of spring now, and the old bur oak did not disappoint. This past weekend, it was full of yellow-rumped warblers, affectionately known as "butter butts"- perhaps half a dozen at a time, foraging for insects amongst the young leaves and the long, stringy catkins of oak flowers.





Don't see the yellow patch on the bottom? Well, that's because it is actually on the back of the bird, which you can't see when your craning your neck straight up.



Here's a shot of a yellow rumped warbler from Sanibel Island that I captured in March, 2008, where you can barely see the yellow patch just below the tip of this bird's right wing.

Yellow-rumped warblers, along with a slew of other interesting species, are passing through Ohio right now. In fact, the major wave of colorful birds has probably already subsided. I was glad that I was able to give a few individuals respite in our backyard.

Tom

Going Back

As we grow older, our collection of memories, stored as visual images, smells, emotions, and countless other visions that are too difficult to describe begin to blend and blur, forming an incredible goulash of goodness. Our experiences increase, and what we view as our defining moments in our lives begin to rise to overshadow that pot of goulash, eventually bubbling over and flaring up in a cloud of steam. This is our realization of what is really important in each of our lives. Although I've photographed and naturalized in far flung places like Australia, Borneo and across America, and seen more pristine natural areas in Ohio that puts me in company with only a handful of people, I don't think any of these experiences will equal the emotional rush that Megan and I hope to experience sometime, at Riverside Hospital in Columbus, within the next 14 days.

With that being said, I took the time this past Monday, president's day, and in fact my 30 birthday, and my own mother's 59th birthday, to explore one of my old haunts, Kenney Park in Columbus Ohio.

Perhaps what marks this park as an urban cooperative is a recently restored footbridge that spans an old stream channel on the floodplain of the Olentangy River. Columbus' parks systems are fairly unmanaged, and recently, the position of director of natural resources for the parks system was eliminated. This park relies on its users to provide maintenance and upkeep.

The main path through the park remains littered with trees from remnants of Hurricane Ike that ravaged central Ohio in September.

Although I do not know his name, one of our old neighbors re-planked and old bridge, carving and painting the names of the dogs that had frolicked along the banks of the Olentangy.

A walk across the bridge allowed me some familiar views.


Canada geese, now ever present along the Olentangy.


Mallard ducks, also ubiquitous.


The white barked sycamores, adapted to thrive in the floodplain.


The corky bark of the hackberry


The evergreen leaves of a Carex.


The seed head of wild rye (Elymus)


The former home of a woodpecker,


A Carolina chickadee,



And a white-throated sparrow, hiding amongst the mast of box-elder samaras.

Although Megan and I have only recently been removed from this park- a place that felt like an extension of our backyard, it feels like years have gone by. It is hard to believe that when our pregnancy began, our house sat only 100 feet away from the green corridor. When I walked into the woods this past Monday, I must admit, I looked at the weeds and my analytical botanical mind started to trash the place. However, I was quickly reminded why I enjoyed the place so much. There simply is nothing like having a little bit of nature, not matter how trounced upon and full of invasive species, that you feel a part of. We haven't found that connection yet at our new house, but as we live here, I'm going to slowly transform the backyard into a mecca for Ohio native plants where our future naturalist, if he or she chooses, can grow and explore.

Tom