Every year the staff of Allegany State Park collect unwrapped toys for the Marines Toys for Tots Foundation. Today the Marines arrived to pick up all these wonderful toys to be distributed to many needy children in the local community.
My photo opportunity with a Marine & some of the Toys.
By Young Naturalist E
December
Snow flakes fall softly
Church bells are ringing clearly
Happy children play
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Red-tailed Hawk toes up close
Birds are recognized as being the “superb flyers” of the world. Although their wings are what helps them fly . . . . it is their feet and bill that help distinguish what ecological niche that hey live in. By studying their feet we can understand unusual behaviors and where they spend most hours of the day (tree, ground, water). We can look at the birds of prey who have armor protecting it from being bitten and sharp talons for grasping its prey. The grebe toes are lobed which will expand or contract as the bird swims or dives under water. Chickadees will uses its toes for grasp sunflower seed and then peck through the shell to get to the meat of the seed. Although there are many obvious features of the birds feet that helps it survive (as listed above) . . . I plan to discuss the 5 different toe arrangements that our birds have that help make those obvious features work! Read the rest of this page »
First Northern Saw-whet Owl of the Season.
This year the Allegany State Park (Northern Saw-whet Owl) banding station was open for 28 nights and captured 83 different individuals with 90 total NSWO captures. We did not capture the hundreds of owls like the big migration sites but this stations numbers this season was significantly better than my previous three years of banding combined. The last two weeks in November resulted in very bad weather conditions (lake effect, strong winds and rain) which considerably reduced the number of net hours that the station typically operates. Read the rest of this page »
Allegany State Park’s Administration Building.
It just seemed like yesterday when I reported 10,000 views and it is hard to believe that I am at 100,000 views already. THANKS EVERYONE!
By Young Naturalist E
The grass was so soft
The shade was cool on my face
Birds are twittering
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Getting into the Holiday Spirit
Bald Eagle
Sunday morning I received a phone call about some Eagles that were congregating around a decomposed deer here in Allegany State Park. The person who called wasn’t sure but he thought few Golden Eagles were mixed in with the Bald Eagles. That was enough for me to quickly finish uploading my Bonaparte’s Gull post and take off into the freezing rain to check out the situation. I was disappointed in not seeing any Golden’s but I did find a few cooperative Juvenal Bald Eagles to photograph.
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A few Bonaparte’s Gulls
I was busy with a few personal things this weekend! But I did take a quick trip over to Dunkirk Harbor in search of some waterfowl! The Bonaparte’s Gull seemed to be the most dominate bird that I was able to locate but did find a few other special birds! Read the rest of this page »
Welcome to the mon@rch nature blog and I hope you join us in some of our nature adventures through the Allegany State Park area!
I am a naturalist, field biologist and nature photographer from the Western New York area. I have started exploring nature writing through this blog and it truly has been fun sharing my numerous adventures with everyone. Thanks to the many other authors that help me with my post and they will be sharing some of their nature explorations.
I have always had a latent interest in birds and photography and have been lucky enough to find time to explore these interests over the last few years. I am very thankful to the Cattaraugus County Bird Club for getting me started, sharing their wealth of knowledge and for their wonderful programs. And many thanks to Tom for letting me share some of my adventures and photos on the Monarch Nature Blog.
Thank you for taking the time visiting and commenting on this blog.
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