Looks interesting.  I'll put it on my gift request list.


One of the most interesting nature-related books I've read in recent years is Entangled Life by Melvin Sheldrake - a fascinating exploration of fungi.  Another one is An Immense World by Ed Yong about animal senses.

Good!  If you like it, then my work is done.  They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so there is a story.  A thousand words would be an essay, or one hell of an elaborate excuse.  I call this story 'The Tale of Two Tails'.  What little was left of this fish, let's call it the tail-piece, or a nice piece of tail, was taken back to the nest for the chicks, who I'm quite sure love a tail, or two.

I visited Cranberry marsh early yesterday morning in hopes of finding the Willet previously reported but I couldn't find it anywhere, although I now realize that there is one spot that I failed to investigate because I'm not too swift at that early hour.  There were Canada geese but little else.  I called out "Willet!" in my best impression of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront because I didn't really expect the bird to respond to "Stella!"  All to no avail ... so, I moved on.

 
Snapping turtle



Eastern Kingbird



Savannah sparrow



Bob O. Link



Snipe



Yellow warbler



Osprey


Two tails

 Alongside a gravel road hell bent on seduction, there tracked a post & wire fence that was as dedicated to its task as a chaperone.  It coursed true-parallel, in genuine fashion, as if providing steadfast supervision.  On this fence there be a few swallows from time to time,  merely resting or summarily passing judgment on one so easily seduced.  It is hard to say.  I could have taken offence for the latter but I wasn’t actually on the fence, merely standing close to the fence among an exploitable cluster of dense shrubs and underachieving trees, ostensibly in hiding as part of a stake-out of sorts with camera in hand, at 7:30 in the morning, just waiting for those tiny swallows, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.  Those swallows, I’ll show them!
 
 
 I couldn’t see but a small section of the post & wire fence as a consequence of the shubbery.  After a short interval of impatience I heard a “loud” bird call that was darn close, a call that was somehow familiar yet mysterious.  The repeated calls were piercingly strident, like calls for help and surely seemed to be coming from behind the adjacent bush that had been mute since my arrival, offering not even a murmur.  I thoroughly dismissed the notion that the shubbery was being exclamatory. I’m not a comprehensive fool, you know.
 
 
 I was afraid to move lest I spook whatever it was that was spooking me.  The situation was ridiculous.  I couldn’t endure the suspense any longer.  I therefore silently drifted around the bush, much like an unmoored boat propelled by a lazy ebb tide until I could finally realize a better view of this mysterious bird because the calling continued uninterrupted during my covert translation.  As if emerging from a chaos of verdure I saw what it was ... of course, now I remember the owner of the calls ... it was a lone snipe nursing a gripe and it was perched on a fence post because the wire was rusty and also nasty in a myriad of other ways.  So, from one old post to this post, I offer you one of Wilson’s finest snipes ... a bona fide fence sitter.












Now who's the king of birds!