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August 2026 Boston Athenaeum book talk, bird conference, Berkshires

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    For those of you who can't attend one of my book talks, I thought you might like to watch  this video  of my talk at the Boston Athenaeum. August 3-7 I'm at the American Ornithological Society annual meeting in Amherst, MA. Noticing more differences with engineering meetings. At engineering meetings, the chair of each session simply tells each speaker when to start and end their talk. Here, they use a  woodcock peent call  to start each talk and a  laughing gull squawk  to end the talk. The gull is very effective; it's hard to keep talking over a screeching gull. More birdy t-shirts. One woman was taking photos of peoples' shirts, saying she was making a life list of birds she sees on t-shirts. I've also been noticing the range of birdy tattoos people have; in contrast, one of the lab instructors in my department at MIT has a tattoo of the differential equation governing fluid mechanics, the Navier-Stokes equation. And one woman, sho...
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July 2026 How I became a professor at MIT; birds and art

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    When I was teaching, for the last class of the term, I would give a talk on  How I Became A Professor at MIT . I sent it to my friend Marisa the other day and she loved it so much I thought I'd post it here, too.  And, now, back to Nature Notes.  Tuesday July 7 On my way to a bird meeting in Newport RI, I stopped in Providence to go to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) museum and have dinner with a friend. I was tickled by this owl beaker, made in 1556, with a coconut shell body, gilded wings that flap and a gilded head that detaches to form a cup. The label said it was German, and that "Coconuts - shipped from India and South and Central America - were rare in the 1500s in northern Germany but valued as medicinal and restorative. Coconut milk was considered a remedy or aphrodisiac."   The Wilson Ornithological Society meeting was held at a college right next to Newport's famous cliff walk, handy for a little early morning or lunchtime birding. I...
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June 2026 Trolls, baby animals everywhere, Adirondacks, Maine

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Tuesday, June 2   Went to Rhode Island to visit my friends Di and Linda today. First, Di and I met up with their friend, Pam, an ornithologist who works at the Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge to go for a walk. Pam said my bird book has "the perfect combination of nerdy and awe", which is, itself, perfect! Afterwards, we stopped at the Ninigret Park to see the Thomas Dambo troll sculptures - here's Greta Granite. When I got home, I went to Ward's Pond to check on the swan nest - 5 cygnets! But a week and a half later, they were down to just 2.   Friday June 5  Mama duck trying to get some alone time at Ward's Pond.  And in the evening, Jetta, the Arb intern staying with me this summer, saw this baby rabbit in my back yard. Jetta Boser  Sunday June 7 Walking at Broadmoor Audubon sanctuary in Natick, a turtle laying eggs.  Later in the day, along the path near Ward's Pond, someone finally added eyes to the crinkled bark mouth and nose on this tree. ...
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