Rational Thought Neglect

So do you know what's hard? Writing a blog that deals with....nature....is harder than it looks. Really. I mean, it would be one thing if I was 60 years old (not that there is anything wrong with that) and was completely unconcerned about the presentation/content/image. I'd throw out some pictures of some rare birds and shit and be like "This Fork-tailed Flycatcher was showing well at Plum Island National Wildlife Refuge, where it delighted hundreds of happy observers. A great day for birding!"

But that's not how I would do it.

The inner me would want to write something like "This Fork-tailed Flycatcher was fucking awesome. I think I had a brain aneurysm when I saw it. Holy shit. My face melted right off and I was unknowingly stomping it down into the mud in my sheer ecstasy, without feeling any pain at all. This out-of-body experience has inspired me to build an alter to Fork-tailed Flycatchers in my living room..."

And maybe that's what I should do. But is that what I think is best? I'm not sure yet. I mean.....is that something you would like to see? It will be interesting to see what BB&B looks like in a year. At any rate, if I ever saw a Fork-tailed Flycatcher I think that's pretty much what my reaction would be. If you don't know what one looks like, it's the thing birder's dreams are made of. In other words.....Google it.



Some of our turbines. This shot was taken on September 19th, I think....this scene looks a lot different now. I'll show you later.



A beat-up Black Swallowtail, or some similar species. Very attractive nonetheless.




The meaning of this creature is completely lost on me, but it seems significant.



Someday, he's going to grow up to be a turbine!

High Fives For Low Lives

Life and death continues to roll on under the turbines. There's been a bit of a lull lately in bat fatalities (probably weather related), but still a few manage to hurl themselves into the blades. Migrant birds move through one of the ridges we work on, and I was stoked to get lifer Cape May Warblers this week. Not crippling looks, but I did feel mildly handicapped for a while afterwards. We still haven't found any dead birds since the end of July, which suits me just fine. If I was a bird, I wouldn't want to fling myself into a massive Blade Of Death that flies through the air at incredible speed either. I don't see why the bats are into it, but then again they have senses that we can't even begin to relate to. Can you imagine having echolocation? Walking around yelling at stuff in the dark and being able to not only see where you are going, but catching food for yourself? Try it sometime.....preferably with a lot of other people around. They might find it interesting.

Here's a few recent pictures from my office. Hope you had a positive weekend!



A Red Eft troglodytes its way across a road. This is the immature terrestrial life stage of Eastern Newt, they look pretty different otherwise.



An Eastern Red Bat that got sentenced to Death By Turbine.



I don't know what to make of this, except that it kicks ass.



A Silver-haired Bat sleeps peacefully. Just kidding, its dead!



A sunrise taken from the field site. Note the ridge in the photo has its own suite of turbines.