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January 2026 Eagles, Provincetown,

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   Saturday January 3 Gorgeous sunrise this morning, with the light making the ice on the pond glow.   Checking eBird last night, there were reports of 3 snowy owls at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in Newburyport, on the north shore. Went up there this morning, but no luck with the owls. Did see a juvenile bald eagle and a couple of  northern harriers , one flying low over the bushes near the footpath, along with some  common eiders , a couple of  surf scoters , with their wacky beaks, on the ocean and  black ducks  on the marsh. Lots of people there, all hoping for a snowy, but no one I spoke to saw one. Full moon rising over the pond tonight. Friday January 9 There was a deer carcass on the ice on the pond this morning! I'm guessing that a pack of coyotes chased it onto the ice and brought it down. Pretty amazing! I went back again in the late afternoon and saw an adult bald eagle standing on the ice, not that close to the deer. I ...
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December 2025 Jamaica Pond, Cape Ann, Plum Island

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  Sunrise Jamaica Pond December 16 Monday December 1  While this is not strictly a nature note, I couldn't resist including this new Massachusetts license plate, featuring the Cat in the Hat, to celebrate a Springfield, Massachusetts native, Ted Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. I spotted this one in the main parking lot in JP.   When I was a kid, my brothers and I used to play the license plate game, trying to see a plate from every Canadian province and US state in a single year; Niagara Falls, where we grew up, is a particularly good location for this. My parents would drive us down to the Falls for an outing, and instead of looking at the Falls, we would check out the license plates on the cars parked along the road. The hardest plates to see were Newfoundland and Labrador; Yukon; Northwest Territories; Hawaii and Alaska: far away places with few people. The absolute best plate is the iconic NWT plate: white plate in the shape of a  polar bear . As you can...
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November 2025

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My upcoming book, Birds Up Close, now has a  website ! You can pre-order it on Bookshop.org (US and UK) or Indigo (Canada)   Saturday November 1 Saw five  ruddy ducks  at Jamaica Pond early this morning, the first migrating ducks I've seen this fall. Encouraged by this, I walked over to Leverett Pond later in the afternoon and was rewarded with a single female  ring-necked duck . Ebird reports a handful of migrating ducks starting to show up at Plum Island, on the north shore; I'll have to head up there in the next couple of weeks. The highlight of the day was a bat flying over Ward's Pond in the afternoon. A couple of other women were at the edge of the pond watching it zipping around, catching insects. Unusual, but not unheard of, to see a bat in the afternoon. After watching it for a few minutes one of the women called out - Oh, look, a hawk! Which then proceeded to catch the bat! Amazing precision flying, as the bat was darting all over the place. I did...
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October 2025 Book Update, Arb talk Nov 15, Cape Cod

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Publication date: April 28, 2026 The bird book is working its way through the production process! The page proofs arrived, with the text and figures laid out as they will appear in the book, and I'm going through them with a fine-tooth comb. I've sent the marketing questionnaire back to the Press, met with the publicity and marketing team and have started lining up post-publication book talks. I'm excited!   Also, I'm giving a free talk Built to Withstand: How Plants Resist Wind and Weight at the Arnold Arboretum Saturday November 15 at noon in the Hunnewell Visitor Center. You can register  here .   Wednesday October 1 So sorry to hear that Jane Goodall died today. But what a life! I heard her speak (and do the  chimp pant-hoot ) at MIT in 1995. Some time ago, my friend Jaime sent me a box of postcards of women scientists; here's hers.     Sunday October 5 Spent the weekend in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, walking at LeCount Hollow beach on the Atlant...
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