Today from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and all day tomorrow, there's a green expo at Ramapo College. Today only, there is a conference about charting New Jersey's energy future. I'll be writing about it for The Record.

   My colleague Alex Nussbaum wrote about the conference in an article for The Record last week.

   More info on the expo can be found here.

               These rarer cousins of the white-breasted nuthatch have been in the area for awhile, and I finally got one at my feeder one afternoon this week.

   The red-breasted nuthatch is a beautiful little bird, more a European sportscar than a clunky sedan like the sparrows at the feeder.

   If he could sing like a Carolina wren, he'd have the whole package.

   The Record has a front-page story of mine today about a proposed New Jersey ban on plastic grocery bags.

  The story started out on Monday afternoon as a quick small article and just kept getting bigger.

   The paper vs. plastic debate is extremely complicated -- in the end, the best way to go seems to be to bring your own reusable bags to the store.

   I am happy to announce we have a screech owl living in Owlendale once again, at least occasionally.

  Although I have not seen Ace for a couple of days, he has stayed in the box several times over the past 11 days.

   I would not have any idea of how often he has been staying here without the video-camera.

   I also have been checking the Quacker Track video-cam to make sure he has not been staying in the wood-duck box instead.

   (He has not.)

  I have missed the little guy. The last I saw him was last June, when the final owlet fledged.

  Even though we have never talked, or even really said hello, Ace has been a good neighbor.

  Quiet, well-mannered, and a good mouse exterminator. Who could ask for more?

   I hope that everyone will give him plenty of space -- or else he will be driven away, which would be a shame.

   This happened two owl seasons ago, when people got too close to the box.

    What you see in the photo above is all you'd see when he's at the opening -- if you'd see him at all.

   So I hope people will follow and enjoy Ace's exploits on this blog, and leave the little fellow alone.

   Below is a photo of Ace taken on the screech-cam last week.

   Is he the same Ace as last year?

   He is gray-phased, just like last year, he looks like Ace, and owls tend to return to nesting sites when they have been successful.

  I am trying to find way to post videos of Ace so that they are easier to see. Right now it is so iffy and time-intensive I may have to post the old way, which was less than satisfactory but better than nothing.

   Stay tuned!

   With mostly mallards and Canada geese on Lake Appert this damp and windy morning (there was a distant kingfisher), things were looking up in a less-than-ideal way: