Monday Mystery 021025

FDR mystery 3
This is the third and final FDR mystery -- from the wallpaper in one of the rooms in the mansion in Hyde Park, N.Y.

Is this a foreign bird, a figment of an artist's imagination, or just a poorly limned Brown-headed Cowbird? (Wallpaper bird ID  typically stump me.)

 


Rat Poison in the News (Alas)

My Screech Owl Companion co-author Scott Weston writes:

I work in Salem, Mass.,  and the post office where the screech owl was found poisoned is about 800 feet from where the Peabody Essex Museum put up one of my screech owl nest boxes -- such a hindrance for success.

https://patch.com/massachusetts/swampscott/s/j4to7/salem-owls-survival-fight-spurs-push-for-action-against-rodentcides

The good news is the Massachusetts Legislature is considering legislation to ban the worst of these rat poisons.


A Terrific Birding Streak

Image001(3)A year and half ago, I wrote my "Bird Watcher" column about Marc Chelemer of Tenafly, who had been birding for 1,000 days in a row.

Marc just wrote to me that yesterday marked a birding milestone: IMG_4224

" I visited the Great Swamp in between my regular full-time job and my afternoon teaching job for a 35 minute visit along Pleasant Plains Road.  The resident Barred Owl was the highlight, though a continuing burly White-crowned Sparrow at the Helen Fenske Visitor Center feeders was also nice.   The checklist marked 1,500 days in a row…"

Congrats, Marc. That's some serious birding.

You can read my earlier column about Marc here:

https://www.celeryfarm.net/2023/08/my-column-birder-on-a-streak.html

 


Green Way Trail Closed

This from Marsh Warden Mike Limatola:

The trail running through the Green Way Field, up to the deer exclosure, has been closed to protect a threatened roosting bird species.

Please follow the detour signs, guiding visitors around that area and back to the main trail.