After a rather stressful year — among other things, having our first child, going on the academic job market, and ending the year with handling an extraordinarily messy and taxing plagiarism case — I decided that I deserved a break. This introvert needs some relaxing alone time! So instead of driving directly and quickly to Nova Scotia, I’m planning to take a circuitous, meandering, leisurely trip up with stops along the way for birdwatching.
I’m also going to indulge myself and write a bunch of posts about what I’m seeing. I know that not everyone gets as excited about, say, Worm-eating Warblers as I do, but … well, y?ou don’t have to read the posts if you don’t want to.
As you may know, birdwatchers tend to keep life lists of the species they’ve seen and tend to get pretty excited when they get to add a species to it. I’m hoping to add a goodly number of species to my list on this trip, thanks to birding in new regions. A bit of background: I reached 250 species in May 2006 by seeing a Great-crested Flycatcher in Ithaca. (I don’t have the dates for the earlier milestones — I passed 200 at some point during my teenage years in Nova Scotia). Number 300 came in Iowa in May 2008 with a Great Egret. Number 350 came just a few days ago: on Sunday when I drove up to the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge for one last time before leaving Ithaca. I left Ithaca yesterday with 351 species on my list.
This morning, after waking up rather too early given when I went to bed last night, I went to sit on my hotel room balcony for a bit. The first bird I saw was a beautiful Laughing Gull dipping down in front of my balcony a mere twenty feet away (#352). Within 45 minutes I added another four species to my list: Black Skimmer, Royal Tern, Least Tern, and American Oystercatcher.
I also saw a Surf Scoter, with it’s distinctive white patch on the back of its head, diving just offshore. I have seen one of those before, but it’s been a while.
Here’s a picture looking out from my balcony this morning. Any guesses as to where I might be?
Sydney
Alan Schmierer