Review: Kaufman's Flights Against the Sunset

I finished reading Kenn Kaufman's much-anticipated Flights Against the Sunset last night. Overall, it was an enjoyable book chock full of insightful and many times humorous stories set against the backdrop of him visiting his ill mother in the hospital. The book plays out in snippets of interactions with his mother, the history of Kenn and his family, and the birding-related stories. It's kind of a "Mitch Albom meets birding" right down to the small physical size of the book. As Kenn has shown us in Kingbird Highway, he's an outstanding storyteller. He makes you wish you were there with him experiencing what he's experiencing. He also makes you think with his insights on common birding discussions like listing and chasing rarities.

If you've followed Kenn's Birdwatcher's Digest columns over the years, you may see some re-hashed stories because I think many of them came from there. Since I haven't kept up with those, they were mostly new to me. I do have two minor complaints about the book. First, the parts where Kenn is interacting with his mother seemed a bit forced into the story. I had trouble making an emotional connection. But I'm sure this book is a tribute to the author's mother, and who am I to stand against that? My second complaint is not really about the story itself, but the price tag on the book - $24 retail for a small hardcover 240 page book! Yikes!

All in all, if you're a fan of Kenn's writing or just good birding stories, you'll definitely enjoy Flights Against the Sunset.

Some Saturday Birding

I joined some fellow Urner Ornithological Club members for a trip to the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday. It was a nice sunny day, but much colder than expected! We had some nice birds including many Wood Ducks, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and my first Pine Warbler of the year. Here a few pictorial highlights:

Tree Swallows were abundant and were scoping out nest boxes.

A young Red-tailed Hawk soars overhead.

A day when you see a Wood Duck is never a bad day.

Swan + Paddleboat = True Love

Story here.

Help Out Rusty Blackbirds!

From the eBird team:

With the help of Steve Matsuoka and the Rusty Blackbird Working Group we've initiated a pilot study of Rusty Blackbird migration through eBird. In this 'proof of concept' study, we hope birders will get out and look specifically for Rusty Blackbirds, and then report their observations to eBird between 1-7 April. You can read more about it here. If all goes well we can better tailor the survey for fall migration, and possibly do some target outreach during winter as well. Any help that you can provide getting the word out about this grassroots effort would be great. Local promotion on the listserves [and blogs] would be a huge help. There is little known about this species during migration, and we feel strongly that eBirders can help fill in some of the gaps in that knowledge. Please forward this information on to others who might be interested in this study.

Six Word Memoir

Thanks go out to the several folks who tagged me with this little meme. Here are the rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like

3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere

4. Tag five more blogs with links

5. Don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Here's mine. I'm not feeling too profound.

Laughter and love pave the way.

I'll tag Beth and a few more later.

The Cape May Skimmer Returns

For me, one of the big disappointments of last fall's "Bird Blogger Conference" in Cape May was that The Skimmer, the pontoon boat that runs nature trips into the salt marsh, was no longer running. Well, good news folks! The Skimmer has a new owner and is now up and sailing again. It began sailing yesterday from its new location across from the Two Mile Beach Unit of the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, the Dolphin Cove Marina on Ocean Drive, at the base of the Toll Bridge. If you go to Cape May, be sure to check it out. While you may not see all the rarities that have people running all over Cape May, you'll get an extremely pleasant and interesting jaunt into the "backwoods" of the salt marsh where you'll encounter some fantastic birds and wildlife.

What's in your coffee cup?

I've mentioned it a zillion times here on my blog and I'll say it again... you need to be drinking sustainable, shade grown coffee. That means no Dunkin' Donuts, no Folgers, no Tim Hortons (for you northerners), and many other brands. When I tell people about sustainable and shade grown coffee, a few topics always come up:

• "I don't know where to buy it." - You'll find a bigger variety if you order it online, yes. But, you can get it in most supermarkets nowadays too. The best selection is at stores like Whole Foods and other specialty food markets.
• "Shade grown coffee is too expensive." - Is it more expensive than Folger's? Yes. Is it truly that much more expensive when you factor in the environmental impact? The great blog Coffee & Conservation has a "per cup" cost calculator so you can compare your coffee purchases to how much it costs to buy shade grown. It'll also tell you how much of a mark-up your paying for that cup of Starbucks.
• "I don't understand the different labels on coffee - shade grown, fair trade, Rainforest Alliance, etc." - I get confused too. I'll turn to Coffee & Conservation again for the full scoop on certification labels. For the most bird-friendly coffee, look for the Smithsonian Bird Friendly Coffee logo.

I sometimes feel like I'm preaching to the choir here on this blog. Probably 90% of my readers already know what I wrote above. But, hopefully, the other 10% out there will learn something and hopefully the other 90% can pass along their knowledge to others.

Tundra Swans at Sandy Hook

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Work has been a bit nuts. Put it this way, we're building about 100 training courses for 120,000 employees in 19 languages. FUN! I did get to do some birding last weekend and I saw a new bird for my Sandy Hook list. Three Tundra Swans, not an easy species to see at Sandy Hook, were hanging out at the far north end of the Hook. To get there it's a bit of a trek out on soft sand - locally known as the Death March. The weather was gorgeous so I took the walk out there and got a few nice pictures of the swans.