Bike and... Bird?

As some of you may know I have begun my 3 month stay in North Carolina (home to some members of the Moniz clan). I'm on week number one of my job as a bird bander. Me and 4 other birders are dedicating the next three months to tracking Swamp Sparrows that call the Mattamuskeet Wildlife Refuge their home for the winter. In order to band the birds we're up and out the door before the birds wake up. That means leaving our house (pictured below) at 5:50 and driving out into the marshes to set up nets. As the sun rises and the birds fly into our waiting nets, we hustle to remove the birds and put colorful bands on them so we can track them later in the season. Good thing i brought several pounds of coffee with me from RI!


I went on my first big bike ride of the winter to the nearby town of Engelhard. It was 30 miles round trip and the flat land of coastal NC made for easy riding. However, the dogs that ran out of several houses to chase me made the ride even more intense than riding in Boston traffic! Fortunately, I had plenty of homemade cookies to come back and snack on. Thanks Ava.

Here's our house. Pretty cool right? What's even cooler is that there's a Great-horned Owl living in our backyard! Last night a few of us went out into the backyard and tried "hooting" to the owl. To my surprise it flew around excitedly, and even hooted back.

A demonstration of my new hooting ability is on the agenda for our pre-trip party at the end of April.