I am pleased to be part of the free Zoom presentations on The Nature Conservancy's five flagship New Jersey preserves. I kick off the series this Thursday with a talk about High Mountain.  (Links below.)

I am pleased to announce that I am presenting a talk for Britain's first-ever virtual Birdfair, which runs from Tuesday, Aug 18, to Sunday, Aug. 23.

My talk, "The real James Bond and Caribbean Conservation," is one of the headliner talks for the first day of Authors Forums, and will be available to Birdfair registrants for three months thereafter.

Gaby Schmitt spotted this guy outside the Fell House yesterday.

What is it? (If you haven't seen any before, consider yourself lucky.)

Thanks, Gaby!

Four years ago, I wrote a "Bird Watcher" column for The Record about crows raiding Wood Duck nests at the Celery Farm.

I wasn't sure what was going on, but I did take a pretty cool photo (above).

My column today -- to coincide with my 9:30 a.m. Zoom talk for Bergen County Camera -  is what I've learned --(and still haven't learned) about ducks and crows since then.

You can read the column here:

Download Jiim Wright The Record BergenEdition_20200808_LF02_3

You can register for my talk here.

On Monday I asked what was going on in these photos I recently took at the Celery Farm. The answers:

 A Cicada Killer wasp is attacking a Cicada (above), paralyzing it.

It then started carrying it up a nearby tree -- probably too heavy to fly with?

I'd like to think she's laying her eggs in the photo below.

More about these awesome insects here.

Congrats to Janet Terchek, who was the first to answer correctly.