Speaking of Nature: Celebrating 28 years of Speaking of Nature: A new resolution for the future of my bird-watching
Last Saturday was a bit of a milestone for me. It might easily have come and gone without me realizing it, but thanks to my obsessive record keeping I happened to see a notation in the pages of my 2025 field diary and avoided an embarrassing oversight. Last Saturday marked the 28th anniversary of Speaking of Nature, an event that I don’t think I could have ever imagined back in 1997 when I sent in my first column.
A lot has happened in 28 years, but I am not going to bore you with a recap. There were victories and tragedies, advances and setbacks, and through it all I tried my best to draw attention to the wondrous world of nature that is right outside our windows. Sometimes a little distraction can be a happy thing. Sometimes a little perspective can be a healthy thing. Understanding more about the world we inhabit is always the best thing. No matter how monumental the events of our own lives may seem, there is a lot more going on around us that is just as important.
To prepare for today’s column I took a stroll through the archives to see what might jump out at me. I thought I might pull a photo from the first year of my column, but those files simply don’t exist. Those were the days when I had to hand deliver rolls of film to the photographers in the office so that they could process the photos for me. I learned how to scan the photos, but developing the film was still beyond me. Then the emergence of one-hour photo processing and the purchase of my own scanning equipment made my life much easier, but I still had to go to the office and deliver the photo files on floppy disks. Yikes!
With my earliest film photos off the table I decided to scan through the earliest photos from the digital age and I stumbled upon a wonderful collection that was taken on May 19, 2009. The photo that I chose for today’s column shows a solitary sandpiper (Tringasolitaria) picking its way through the shallows of a freshwater marsh near a stable. I think this photo is a great reminder to me that I have to get myself out of a rut that started with the COVID pandemic.
I have fallen in love with the Thinking Chair that sits at the edge of my meadow and I actually can’t wait to get down there again and resume my observations of the living things that inhabit the myopically small part of the world that I can temporarily claim as my own. However, I think that the “stay home” mindset that resulted in the installation of the Thinking Chair might need to be resisted. I have become intimately connected to the birds and plants of my meadow, but I think that I’m missing out on too many other things.
Take, for instance, the solitary sandpiper. This is a long-distance migrant that makes its way from South American up into Canada. Along the way these birds will investigate any pond or puddle that has shallow, muddy margins. The birds probe the soft mud for insects and other invertebrates that will serve as fuel for their trip north. There is a brief window in May when the birds are here, followed by an equally brief window in August when the birds head south again.
One striking feature of the Solitary Sandpiper’s life is the fact that they lay their eggs in the old nests of songbirds. Few birds build nests as robust as those of the American robin (Turdus migratorius), so these nests are among the sandpiper’s most favorite. The males will scour their breeding territories in search of possible nests to use, but there is evidence to suggest that the females make the final choice.
This habit of nesting in trees makes the solitary sandpiper unique in the New World. The only other species of sandpiper with this quirky habit is the green sandpiper (Tringaochropus), which breeds from the coast of Norway all the way across Europe and Asia to the Sea of Japan. The two species look almost identical and basically serve as New World-Old World counterparts to one another.
The birds are only here for a month and then – poof – they are gone. The same is true with so many of our spring wildflowers; they disappear in the blink of an eye. Only by getting outside in the right place at the right time will you ever see them. I realize that observing every aspect of nature would be more than a full-time job, but to let it pass by without even noticing is a shame.
So, using today’s column as a motivator, I am making a Speaking of Nature resolution. This year, five years after the COVID pandemic convinced me to shelter in place in my own backyard, I am going to devote 50% of my field time to places other than my meadow. The lakes, ponds, and forest trails in our are simply offer too much to ignore. Mornings will be spent in the meadow, but afternoons will be spent exploring. If I find something really amazing, then I might even consider a morning away from home. I am really looking forward to a summer full of adventures.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 28 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.
Daily Hampshire Gazette
