Born Again Bird Watcher Archive

Let’s face it, most naturalists tote quite a bit of gear out into the field for a day of collecting, exploring, or simply enjoying the wonders of nature. Even the most ascetic bird watcher, once content to, like John Muir, take to the fields with nothing more than a flask of tea and a notebook, is now ever increasingly likely to be a practitioner of digiscoping and thus has a few extra bits of gear to bring along. Vests are all well and good (downright superb in some cases) but just as often as not some sort of pack is advantageous.

Let’s face it, most naturalists tote quite a bit of gear out into the field for a day of collecting, exploring, or simply enjoying the wonders of nature. Even the most ascetic bird watcher, once content to, like John Muir, take to the fields with nothing more than a flask of tea and a notebook, […]

While the beginning of the famous, gift-laden twelve days of Christmas actually begin on Christmas Day proper (December 25) and conclude on Epiphany (January 6), the modern western practice of the Christmas holiday renders this period all but moot except to the exceptionally observant of the faith or as a poetic metaphor. For this reason, Born Again Bird Watcher will be observing the “Twelve-tide” beginning on December 1 and running out twelve days thence.

Whether your interest in Tundra Swans, Cygnus columbianus, is focused on their patterns of migration, their susceptibility to avian influenza, or is simply based on their majestic beauty and the pleasure to be derived from watching them, then the Swan Surveillance and Research page of the USGS’s Alaska Science Center website is something about which you should know.