New England Wildlife Photo Contest

The members of the Yahoo Group "New England Wildlife Photography" have a monthly photo contest on PBase. All the photos are fantastic but you can only vote for one per month. Check it out.

Plum Island 12/28/05

I spent the day at Parker River NWR and Joppa Flats (i.e. Plum Island) yesterday. Highlights of the trip include the following:

Red Throated Loon, Rough Legged Hawk, Northern Harrier, Snow Geese, Snow Buntings, White Wing Scoter, Common Eider, Horned Grebe, Snowy Owl, Purple Sandpiper, and Yellow Rump Warbler.

No mammals but I did find some tracks that looked like fox to me.

New Carnivore Discovered

This month the World Wildlife Fund announced that its researchers had discovered a new mammal species in the rainforests of central Borneo. The animal was "caught" by a camera trap and you can see the photos on their website. WWF claims that this previously unknown animal could be a new species of civet or marten or an entirely new branch of the Order Carnivora. CCN also has a small article on this story.

A story like this always amazes me. Animals are constantly being discovered but almost never large carivores. It just goes to show that the natural world isn't completely mapped out.

Christmas Bird Counts

On Saturday I participated in the 106th Christmas Bird Count. The count was started by the Audubon Society to counter the traditional "Side Hunt". The goal was to perform a bird census yearly to monitor population trends. The conservation effort has grown over 100 years and now boasts over 2000 sites and 50, 000 participants.

In Massachusetts there are 35 individual area counts. The area that we did on Saturday was Worcester. In addition to the typical winter birds (chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, robins, blue jays, etc.) we had a great look at a red necked grebe. Other members of our group spotted four bald eagles and a couple of red crossbills. It was a beautiful day and everyone had a good time. I hope to publish the complete species list soon.

Nature reading for the winter season

If you've ever gone outside in the dead of winter and wondered how in the world animals can survive in the harsh conditions, you will find Winter World : The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich a great read. The book describes the adaptations that different animals use to combat the cold temperatures. Much of the book is devoted to the kinglet. While other birds are migrating further south, these amazing little birds spend the entire winter in New England. They have evolved to survive in these conditions and so that they can be the first ones back north in the spring. The drawback is an astonishingly high mortality rate (I seem to remember 80% per year). While I don't always agree with his methods, Heinrich does a great job of explaining the winter lives of the local wildlife.

Photo Contest

The Massachusetts Audubon Society sanctuary in Worcester, Broad Meadow Brook, is hosting a photo contest in their visitor center. I submitted a few of my photos to the show so I was asked to attend the grand opening of the exhibit last night. My pictures didn't take away any awards but three of them have already been sold. All the entries are really great so I'd recommend you stopping by if you're in the area. The show runs thru March.

A hopeful start...

I'm a person who has always been fascinated with the natural world. I love uncovering the plants and animals all around the country. Recently I've started documenting my discoveries using a digital camera. You can see my "work" at

http://www.pbase.com/mwalker427

As an extension of that site, I've decided to start this 'blog to discuss the plants and animals of southern New England. I also hope to touch on conservation issues in my area and around the world.