As part of the Fyke Nature Association website upgrade, Tom Mitchell has compiled an Hour on the Tower list of bird sightings from 2016 to 2021 with the help of Charlie West and Darlene Lembo.

Tom Mitchell has included Rib Fanning's Celery Farm sightings from 1998 to 2008 and information on the Mount Peter Hawk Watch via Judy Cinquina as well -- with a link to the Hawk Count website's Mount Peter sit info, no less.

You can read about the Hour on the Tower and see the lists here.

You can read a "Bird Watcher" column I wrote about the Hour on the Tower here.

Impressive.

(Photo above from two decades ago by Jerry Barrack, from In the Presence of Nature, one of the Celery Farm books that Jerry and I did.)

After getting two more reports from Celery Farm regulars that they were strafed by the male Red-winged Blackbird likely defending his young-- and getting strafed again myself -- I closed off the milkweed field by Phairs Pond.

Please keep your distance. Should only be for a few more days.

Then Dennis the Menace Jr. will leave us be. (See next post.)

More about aggressive Red-winged Blackbirds here.

Michael Sterling's photo of Dennis Jr. is at the top of this post. (Thanks, Michael!)

When I was looking for butterflies yesterday by Phairs Pond, I could swear I was strafed by a male Red-winged Blackbird, who then flew from tree to tree, giving me the what-for.

When I worked for the Meadowlands Commission, a Red-winged Blackbird did the same thing to passersby on the Marsh Discovery Trail one summer.

We dubbed him Dennis Menace after Dennis Cheeseman, who first photographed him. It was roughly the same time of year.

I think Dennis Jr. might be at the Celery Farm.

More on Dennis the Menace Sr, here.

Remember last week when I reported that Mike Lefebvre has been keeping lists of plants at various natural areas since at least 2009, and that he wanted to share the list he created for the Celery Farm using his own observations, the NYNJCT Botany website and i-naturalist.

I made it available as a download.

Now Tom Mitchell has made it a webpage all its own on the Fyke Nature Association website, with a link for more information on each plant. Pretty cool.

You can view it here.

(Thanks, Mike and Tom!)

What critter made these tracks last week in the Celery Farm?