Hog Island Audubon Camp

Hog Island shoreline in summer. Photo courtesy Hog Island Audubon Camp.

Where will you be in June? If you've got June 19–22 free, why not consider spending it watching birds on an island off the Maine coast, accessible only by boat? We'll be helping to teach a week-long session for adult birders with the theme "The Joy of Bird Watching" at the Hog Island Audubon Camp.

Our buddy Scott Weidensaul has been a regular instructor at Hog Island for several years and he raves about the place and the experience. So when we were asked to help out as instructors for a session this summer, we did not waste a lot of time pondering.

Photo courtesy Hog Island Audubon Camp.

Hog Island has been hosting summer nature camps under the auspices of Maine Audubon and The National Audubon Society since 1936! Besides the glorious setting of the Maine coast in Muscongus Bay, there's lots of natural-history history on Hog Island. Roger Tory Peterson was an instructor there. Rachel Carson mentioned it in Silent Spring. Olin Sewall Pettingill and Allan Cruickshank were on staff, too. These days the likes of Stephen Kress, Kenn Kaufman, Mark Garland and many other experts on subjects as diverse as wildflowers, nature writing, and yoga teach courses on Hog Island for campers young and old. An overview of the camp is available here.

We're looking forward to getting back to Maine and to making new friends--feathered and otherwise. Hope to see you there.

Atlantic puffin adult returning to nest burrow with food. Photo courtesy Hog Island Audubon Camp.

Signs, Signs

Sign near the Cranberry Bog boardwalk in Greenbrier County, WV.

Resident, uncommon, rare, migrant, and vagrant thieves must use OTHER areas of the park.

Sign along Sugar Creek Mountain Road in Fayette County, WV

Hey, at least they're not using the shotgun to hunt.

Bay-breasted Wisp of Smoke

I endeavored to take pictures of a male bay-breasted warbler on Sunday morning, after the end of the New River Birding Festival. Geoff Heeter, owner of Opossum Creek Retreat where much of the festival is held, and his wife Kyle, had us over to their farmhouse for breakfast and a smidge of birding.

After breaky, we headed over the hill down to the creek, where, in the thickest stands of rhododendron, several Swainson's warblers nest each spring. We caught glimpses of this spooky warbler, but never really set eyes on him. Good thing Zick had gotten great looks the day before (and I, last year) or we might have been bumming...

Back to the bay-breasted. He never sat still, except when he was perfectly backlit or behind a thick bough. Here are the only images not already committed to the digital trashcan.

Cursed branch! Stop vexing me!

Such a lovely bird and still, so shy.

Laws of the Universe dictate that 89% of all warbler images look like this.

Can you find a better color scheme than this?

Blow it up and sharpen the crapola out of it and it starts looking like art.