If it seems as if the coast goes on for miles it’s because it does. This is Hog Island, Eastern Shore. There’ve been two batches of settlers on this island, one that mysteriously disappeared in 1672 and the other that moved in in 1700 and stayed for over 230 years…until coastal erosion and a series of hurricanes did away with livable space. They shipped the people and their houses out in barges.
Just some random trivia about these islands we’re surveying for red knots, birds that breed in the Arctic and travel all over the world. Funny. All these stories of migrating birds and humans.
The first morning out on the Eastern Shore, Virginia. We’re riding a beautiful little Carolina skiff, headed to what’s known as Myrtle island.
Woah, there’s so much love for the little warbler and the decal, I’m touched. Glass kills are definitely a problem. Those new building designs with massive glass windows that’re getting really popular don’t help much. If a cut-out sticker could help, I’d do it in a heartbeat. We had tons of fun cutting all the shapes out, too.
If you’ve been inspired by this story (!) to make cool decals or anti-needless-bird-death devices, I’d love to know. If you’ve made anything cool before that you wanna share, I’d love to know about that, too.
This little guy hit our glass sliding doors at Pymatuning and died. This was two days ago when I was with the swamp/song sparrow people. I wasn’t the one to find him kicking on the floor nor was I the one who watched him die. He was still warm in my hand. Later that day, we agreed that we needed to fix the glass doors. You know you’re working with bird people when you spend dinnertime cutting out species-specific bird (mostly) shapes from decal paper. I did the geese and the stork in the bottom right - we’ve got swallows, that great cattail with a feisty swamp sparrow on it, other flying creatures.
6 song sparrow eggs, speckled blue and brown. This was the first time we found the nest, anyway. Hopefully, mama is still incubating and all the eggs are alive and well. I’ve been in Pennsylvania for over a week. Just as everything was getting settled in, it’s off to Virginia. Goodbye sparrows, hello shorebirds!
Field-work day 8. The internet has been prone to be scared out of its wits by the weather. It was balmy and sunny last week, but turned grayer and chillier by the day. That does make walking around in the field quite miserable, especially when the birds don’t show. It rained sleet yesterday. But well, today was beautiful.
Day 3 of field-work (haha)
Pelican tracks in the sand
