The last two afternoons, I have been seeing a couple of Common Nighthawks overhead -- including a pair at Crestwood Lake in Allendale around 5 p.m.
Cousins of nightjars, they are a definitely worth checking out. (And you're probably never going to see one at your feeder.)
The link to a column I wrote about nighthawks for The Record several years ago is here.
Andreas Lauschke, a volunteer pilot for LightHawk, has produced an incredible 360-degree aerial video of High Mountain for The Nature Conservancy in New Jersey.
Andreas writes:
You have to use a modern browser, like Chrome or FF. It will NOT work on IE!
You can rotate with the mouse (you'll probably want to go full screen). You can look directly down, you can look backwards, you can pause and make screenshots, but unfortunately you can NOT zoom in/out on YouTube.
You can view it here or go to the YouTube site. (Thanks, Andreas!)
You can learn more about LightHawk here.
You can learn more about High Mountain and The Nature Conservancy here.
Can anyone remind me why I took this picture?
My latest column for The Record is about Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and their incredible migration. (And the males' amazing ruby throats.)
The column appears in the Better Living section of the Thursday, August 25, editions.The link is here.
Just finished an amazing eight-day, seven-night trip in the Galapagos aboard the Samba -- a natural-history vacation of a lifetime.
Will post some pix from time to time.
Not sure who these feet belong to... Probably a resident of one of the many islands we visited.