Oceanside

While I can't say things are winding down in North Carolina, the field season is certainly coming to a close. We're busier than ever, seeing lots of great birds, and even have a trip or two in the works. I also got my hands on a few great pictures taken by Matt and Lauren who spend spring, summer, and fall working on a few islands off the coast of Maine for the Project Puffin. Very cool.


The weather is warming up, and this means our Swamp Sparrows are beginning to migrate north toward their breeding ground. And so the bird banders will also part ways. After my first season of bird banding, I'm am sure there will be more. So before we close up the nets one last time, how 'bout more NC pics?

Here's one of a few Willets on a beach at the Outer Banks. We went a couple of weeks back and had a great, great day. The beaches were deserted, and the birds were out.

I'm planning a bike trip early next week from the southern Outer Banks up to Nags Head. I'll leave the refuge here, and take a ferry over the the southern point of the OBX. Then I'll cruise 30 miles the first day, and 45 the second. I'm excited to make one more trip out there. I'm just hoping that there isn't a strong wind coming from the north. It has potential to be a long 75 miles!

The picture above was taken just a few days ago. It's me and a tiny bird called a Yellowthroat. The picture below is a nice closeup taken by Matt. It was the first Yellowthroat we caught this season- they're great looking warblers.


I've been able to get out on the old bike when the weather's been warm. I always do a nice 20 mile ride on a highway that goes across Lake Mattamuskeet to a town nearby. Normally I hop off the bike once in a while to see what birds are around. Recently, in one ride, I saw: white pelicans, osprey, tree swallows, a bald eagle... and this turtle crossing the road! I put it there on the bike seat for a quick picture, and then placed the turtle near the woods.


So I have about 2 weeks left to soak up coastal NC. The Outer Banks bike tour is happening early next week. Then in April I'll make my way inland to Asheville, where I'll be visiting family and friends in what sounds like a pretty great town. Hope spring is on its way for everyone!

Bird Banders Head to the OBX

This week, the old Nissan (seen in the background) proved to be a very seaworthy vessel as the other bird banders and I spent some time in the Outer Banks. Our trip started with a ferry ride to a southern point on the Outer Banks called Ocracoke. It's a quaint town that reminds me of neighborhoods in Martha's Vineyard. We visited a maritime forest that had Live Oaks, which are the same great looking trees I saw on Cumberland Island in Georgia (see pic of Live Oak below).

Then we traveled north to Nags Head and roamed around a deserted beach looking for birds out at sea. We saw Gannets and Red-breasted Mergansers not very far off shore, and enjoyed a surprisingly wind-less afternoon for the OBX. The next day we were kept indoors by lots of rain, but that didn't stop us from enjoying our mini-vacation. Matt's friend Catherine works at the North Carolina Aquarium in Manteo. We were in for a treat because she gave us a full tour of the place and the inside scoop on the fish, sharks and turtles there.


Back in Hyde County, NC, work has been going great. We're banding lots of Swamp Sparrows and I'm thoroughly enjoying each and every day of working with these folks and keeping track of the birds. I have a couple more Hyde County wildlife pics here. Above is a Carolina Wren. They're great looking birds, with that very white eyeline. Their call can be heard every morning... it's a "teakettle tea-kettle teakettle" or so they say. This guy below is the Carolina Anole. The only anole native to the US, and we just found him in our backyard!


We've almost reached a pretty great fundraising goal for Bike and Build, and I'll be sure to post when that happens. Until then, hope everyone is doing well up north and elsewhere!

Pancakes and Birds!

The field season is in full swing. In addition to banding the birds we've recently been attaching tiny radio transmitters to their backs. Then we use an antenna to locate them, and we're able to get pretty close to the sparrows by just following "beeps" the transmitter sends out. We do some of the tracking before the sun comes up. Combine that with the fact that we've constructed a few sketchy bridges over canals... and I'm just glad I haven't taken a dip in the salty waters of the Pamlico Sound yet!


And per request of Mark Foelster:

In other Hyde County news, a couple of us attended a Valentine's Night Pancake and Sausage Supper to benefit the volunteer fire department. Think this would be popular as a bike and build fundraiser!? I had maybe 4 pancakes loaded with toppings and washed it down with delicious sweet tea. Then after dinner, and watching one of my coworkers eat a sausage wrapped in a pancake, we got a tour of the firehouse, and a crash course in firefighting. We at least learned the basic steps of how to get water running through a hose. Good enough for now!


I've got some bird pictures to post! First, the beautiful Swamp Sparrow. Who thought a sparrow could be so nice looking? Well, this is the one we're after with the radio tracking, the bird we band, and the bird we're all becoming quite familiar with. They like to hang out really low on shrubs, and with their dark color, these can be tough to spot.


Here's me and a Downy Woodpecker. Surprisingly, it's a lot smaller than something like a cardinal. I always thought of woodpeckers as being pretty large birds. But these are small. We must have caught it when it was swooping down to head to another tree. It was pecking pretty hard at my hand for a while, but then it calmed down and we got some great pictures!



Weather's getting warmer down here in NC, hope the same is true up north. We've got a trip planned in a week or so that involves a ferry over to the Outer Banks, then driving up from the southern most point to meet with a birding group from Virginia Tech! Pictures will surely follow.

The Banding Life

Bird banding down in North Carolina is in full swing! We're nearing 1 month of fieldwork, and while there's lots to learn, I'm feeling comfortable with the birds and really enjoying the work. Here's a peek at our banding table. We haul it out into the marshes before sunrise set up the equipment, and this is where, one the birds get caught in the nets, we bring them back so we can band them, weigh them and get other types of info.


Aside from getting familiar with the banding table, we're getting to know the area on our time off. On my second trip to the outer banks with the other interns (Matt and Lauren) we went birdwatching along the coast, and saw close relatives of the Galapagos's Blue Footed Boobies, called the Gannet (not 'gansett). They're large seabirds, and were flying just offshore. It was strange to see a bird very similar to ones we knew so well in Ecuador, flying over the ice-cold water of North Carolina.


After some Outer Banks birding and a large spinach calzone, we made it back to the Wildlife Refuge to begin another week of birding. Just this morning we caught a young Red-winged Blackbird. I'm used to taking birds 1/3 their size out of the nets, so it was a new experience for me! Below is a picture of me and the blackbird.


The bird picture below is of a group of nearly 300 tree swallows flying above one of our work sites. They all like to eat at the same time, for protection, so they get in dense groups like this, and pile onto trees to eat the seeds. They cram so tight on the tree that the branches droop!



Thanks for checking out the NC pics, and also for contributing to my fundraising efforts for this summer's cross-country bike trip! If you haven't received a letter in the mail, you just might be receiving an email copy in the next few days. Yay for paperless fundraising! Stay well family and friends!

Mr. November

I hope everyone had the chance to see a little bit of Barack Obama's inauguration this morning! Here in the Swamp Sparrow house, as we affectionately refer to it, we saw his speech on our old, grainy-picture TV. It truly was inspiring; and for the first time in a long time I feel like the country is in pretty good hands. To celebrate, some of us went for a walk in the freshly fallen SNOW!


I have to admit, maybe some change isn't so good. We went from nice 50 degree days to snow! While the landscapes are beautiful, the weather has thrown a wrench into our work schedule. We can't do any banding when temperatures drop this low - the birds get too cold too fast. But the past two weeks of work have been a real blast. It's fun getting out into the marshes before sunrise and working by headlamp to take the little sparrows out of the nets. I'll try to get some pictures of the birds up soon!


I'm also getting settled in our section of Hyde County. We've been out to eat at a couple of local institutions. Both places (The Feedhouse and a restaurant run by Hot Dog and Edna) don't exactly cater to the vegetarian diet, but they make tasty grilled cheeses.

During our last break I drove over to the Outer Banks. What a great spot! I went to the Pea Island Wildlife Refuge and met some birders who have been with the refuge for over 40 years. And, go figure, I met a Rhode Islander who was volunteering there. She even referenced the old Outback Steakhouse in Warwick in an attempt to give me directions! Aside from birding, I stopped by the Bodie Island lighthouse which looked great on such a crisp, clear day.


I had to include a picture of Lauren's (one of the banders here) pet quail. They get to run around the house, but are pretty much scared of everything. This is the usually camera shy Theophelus making an appearance in the living room!

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.

Blizzard of '08?

I'm sticking to it: it's good to be back in RI. But 14 inches of snow? C'mon. I hope everyone is taking the snow in stride, and catching up on some reading. I am hooked on East of Eden by John Steinbeck. While working on trails in the desert we lived very close to Salinas, where Steinbeck grew up. I could not imagine farming this land! We learned that people needed to farm thousands of acres just to scrape by. A beautiful spot, and lots of neat birds, but the lands is bone dry.



This week me and mom took a ride to the Wintertime Farmer's Market in Pawtucket, RI. What a great time. The market is held in an old mill building and has vendors from RI and MA.



We picked up some fresh spinach, cheese from 'Gansett, and a pound of coffee (shade grown for the birds) that was roasted in the same warehouse. While at the market, aside from chatting with lots of interesting people, I learned of a new food co-op going up in the west end of Providence. I am excited to get involved! Here's a flyer for the farmers market.




Recently, I've taken a couple of trips to Boston to visit some old BU friends. A couple of weekends ago a few of us braved the cold to run in the 2nd annual Jingle Bell Run 5k. I won't lie, I've hiked around lots of California, but taking it from hiking pace to running wasn't as smooth a transition as it was in highschool. My old roomie Mark Foelster made it look too easy! The important thing: regardless of our finishing time, we all got sweet medals.


I hope everyone is staying warm and well during the snow. And if you are in warmer climates send some of it up this way.