Here are the ground rules for Saturday's 'Art of Birding' event at

Each team will have an hour to view the paintings and fill out their score sheets.  Field guides are permitted -- indeed, encouraged.

Scoring:

Each team will try to find, identify and count the number of individual species in each work  on a score sheet (provided)

One point is awarded for:

• each bird species found in the work (write down artist and title).

• each bird species correctly identified in the work.

• the correct count for each species in the work (or 10 or more) .

Example:  If a painting has three Canada Geese and two Mallards, the best answer, for six points:

    two species; Canada Geese (3), Mallard (2).

Bonus point for every bird egg found.

All sculptures and hanged artwork on the first floor or on the patio counts.

No photographs, books or other printed material will count toward the total, except the Audubon elephant folio, which will remain under glass at all times.

Highest score wins.

Cathy Sheeter will be the referee.

Note:  Participants are encouraged to look at the blauveltartmuseum.com site to look at paintings, but most of the ones in the competition are part of the “Artists in Residence Retrospective” currently on exhibit and not necessarily on the website.

Travel through time and explore the various modes of 19th and 20th century transportation on Saturday, May 30, with the Northwest Bergen History Coalition.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the historic John Fell House and nine other historic homes and museums will be open to the public to tour and enjoy.

Joining the Coalition this year will be Allendale's Jack Granowitz and other antique car collectors who will be stopping at the sites to allow visitors to see the “new-fangled” motorcars of the early 20th century.

I'll give readings of my ghost story  "Phantoms of the Ramapos" -- set in 1938 in Allendale, Ho-Ho-Kus and Mahwah -- several times during the day at the Fell House. 

The fact-based story features the HoHoKus Speedway and an actual bank robbery in Allendale.

More information follows.

I could see one nestling in the Red-tailed Hawk nest along the Hackensack River north of River Barge Park today. This nest has been successful for several years now. Photo was taken with a 400mm lens, in a kayak.

Went to Mill Creek Point by kayak today to see if the Little Gull was still there. I did not see it but a Clapper Rail was very cooperative.

On Monday, I asked folks to identify the three insects bugs and a bird in these three photos. (Yes, it was a slightly trick question -- the bird had a spider in its mouth.)

Long-time Celery Farm supporter Joe Lafferty responded:

1. Female Common Whitetail Dragonfly
2. Chipping Sparrow
3. One of the orb weaving spiders?
4. Horace's Duskywing butterfly

I had thought the little butterfly (below) was a Wild Indigo Duskywing, but Joe may well be right.  Congrats, Joe!