August 2026 Boston Athenaeum book talk, bird conference, Berkshires

 

 

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, showing a video of hundreds of crows taking off from their winter roost simply said "They're exuberant!" I went to engineering conferences for 40 years; no one ever said anything was exuberant.  

 

On Wednesday, I took a break and went to the nearby Smith College Museum of Art, a wonderful regional museum, with an impressive collection.  Love their artist-designed bathrooms with birdy sinks! 

Later in the day, I spotted a great blue heron standing on the lawn, panting in the heat (like dogs, birds don't have sweat glands). If you look closely, you can see its neck vibrating and its tongue rapidly wagging up and down as it pants, increasing evaporation.

 On Thursday, as I chatted with my friend Sylvia on zoom in my hotel room, a peregrine falcon shot past the window, diving downwards in a stoop, not 5 feet from the glass; they can go over 200 mph in a stoop. I didn't realize what it was until later on, on my way to dinner, I talked to another conference attendee watching a peregrine standing on the roof of the hotel. 

 Sunday August 9 The dam across the Charles River in Natick has been further demolished. A great blue heron was standing at the base of one of the open channels, searching for fish swept through the channel.

 

Tuesday August 11 A great egret fishing at the pond this morning. A colleague from Mass Audubon who lives in JP said she'd seen it the past few days. Very unusual.

The hibiscus in my neighborhood are showing off.

 Sunset at the pond.

 Wednesday August 12 Broken up wasp nest on the sidewalk where some contractors had been working. Love the precise hexagonal cells. The nests are made from chewed up bits of wood fiber which combines with saliva to form a pulp that dries into a thin, papery sheets.

 

 Saturday August 15 I'm in the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts, for the weekend before doing a book talk at the Mass Audubon sanctuary in Lenox on Monday. First stop: the Clark Art Institute, a museum and art history research center in Williamstown. A wonderful collection, including many Winslow Homers and Impressionists. Walking along the trails through their extensive grounds, I heard a barred owl making its who cooks for you hoot and a pileated woodpecker loudly cackling.

Sunday August 16 The motel where I'm staying is next to a pond and marsh and has a nearly one mile trail through the woods by the marsh. When I went to explore this morning, two pairs of wood ducks took off from the pond and a great blue heron rose up from the pond to stand near the top of a tree by the pond, displacing a red-shouldered hawk, with its distinctive red breast and streaked red and white belly.

Went to visit Naumkeag in Lenox this morning - a Gilded Age "cottage" (with 44 rooms and 50 acres of land), built by the Choate family in the late 1800s. Naumkeag is the Native American name, meaning "fishing place", for Salem, Massachusetts, where the Choate family was from.  Their Lenox cottage is now known mostly for its extensive, beautiful gardens.

 I also liked the tree faces someone had added to several trees.

Monday August 17 Loved the outdoor sculpture exhibit at The Mount, Edith Wharton's estate in Lenox. Several trees were decorated with orange metal butterflies.

Did a book talk at Mass Audubon's Pleasant Valley sanctuary in Lenox in the afternoon which went well. One woman bought 5 books, said she was doing her Christmas shopping!

Wednesday August 19 Back home, early morning walk at the pond.

 Thursday August 20 Great egret still hanging around the pond.

Friday August 21 Walking at the end of my street, I spotted a bald eagle fly past the end of a neighbor's driveway and into the trees. Pigeons scattering everywhere...

Sunday August 23 The Natick dam on the Charles River is nearly gone; it's scheduled to be completely demolished by the end of the month.  

Thursday August 27 Spent the morning at Broadmoor in Natick. From the boardwalk over the marsh, I spotted turtles lined up on a log and also resting on lily pads. 

 

From the path by the Charles River I saw two kingfishers chasing each other down the river, doing a little acrobatics along the way, darting around, cackling as they went. Then one of them flew back up the river, more slowly before turning around and chasing the second one again, which must have followed it up the river.

On my way home, I stopped at the site of the Natick dam, now completely gone, allowing the river to flow freely.

In the evening, the great egret was standing on the beach right by a guy fishing. 

 Saturday August 29 Sunrise at the pond.