Birds and Other Nature Sightings

     In mid-August I went on two whale watching excursions in New England, one out of Plymouth, MA and one out of Narragansett, RI.  I saw dozens of humpback whales over the two days and submitted tail photos of some of those individuals.  From my photos, the folks at Happywhale identified four individuals:   Farfalle , Sanchal , Lever and HW-MN0104020 .   Farfalle, Sanchal and Lever were spotted at Stellwagen Bank near Cape Cod on August 14.  HW-MN0104020 was spotted near the offshore wind farm off Rhode Island on August 15.  Farfalle (sex unknown) is at least ten years old.  It was first spotted on July 31, 2016 at Stellwagen. Farfalle, a.k.a. NA-11314, HW-MN0100150 and GOM-Farfalle.    © S. Weiss Sanchal, a female, is at least 11 years old.  She was first recorded on March 4, 2015 at Silver Bank off the Dominican Republic.  Silver Bank, like Stellwagen, is a protected marine sanctuary.  It is a winter ga...

     After spending a good day whale watching at Stellwagen Bank off of Plymouth, MA, I took another trip the following day.  This time I went a different route and took a boat sailing out of Narragansett, RI.  Since my son-in-law was spending the day with my younger daughter at the Island Rhodes Music Festival , I spent the day with his wife, my eldest daughter.  She has been kind of a good luck charm on the couple of whale trips we’ve taken together.  I did not know where this boat would be targeting whales.   Since the whole excursion would be about four hours, a run around Cape Cod to Stellwagen Bank was not on the captain’s agenda.  We left the dock from the Port of Galilee at 1 p.m. and headed out south of Block Island.  On the way out, I was noticing occasional great shearwaters flying over the water.  As we continued pushing toward our destination, the shear water activity picked up and mixed in with the greats were a few s...

     I recently spent a weekend with my adult daughters.  My youngest wanted to attend a music festival in Rhode Island.   One of her favorite bands, and one that I have become familiar with because of her, was headlining.  She asked me to go and since her sister, my oldest, lives in Rhode Island, we had a place to stay.   An opportunity to spend quality time with both of my daughters, as neither lives with my wife and me anymore, was hard not to seize. We arrived at my daughter’s apartment Thursday night.  My son-in-law had to work Friday and one of the girls would also be working remotely.  This meant some free time for me, and I jumped on it.  Shortly after my son-in-law left for work in the morning, I set out for Plymouth to hop on a whale watch boat.  The 90-minute or so drive got me there in time to make the 9 a.m. trip.  The boat goes out of Plymouth Harbor, across Cape Cod Bay and out to Stellwagen Bank, a marine sanctu...

Before I left for Colorado I made two wish lists, one for new birds and one for wildlife.  As a large western state with high elevations, the Rocky Mountains and eastern plains, it offers a wide range of wildlife not seen in my smaller, coastal New Jersey.  I appreciate that I can sit on a beach near home and see whales and dolphins, but I won’t run into a moose or elk anywhere in the Garden State.  There were many wild animals I wanted to see, but only a few days to see what I could.  There was a potential list of dozens of animals that could be seen besides birds that included snakes, lizards, butterflies, moths, dragonflies and other insects.  However, I kept my list short and reasonable with mostly mammals as targets. Summit of Mt. Blue Sky Interpretive Area.   © S. Weiss Denver, Colorado is nicknamed The Mile High City because it is 5,280 feet above sea level.  Evergreen, CO (our base for the trip) is almost 2,000 feet higher.  The sign abov...