Author Archives: ontheroadwithdec

Common Tern Census on South Monomoy IslandCape Cod Massachusetts;  15 & 16 June 2012 In 2010 there were 6,450 Common Tern (COTE) nests censused in the Common Tern colony located on the northern tip of South Monomoy Island, about three miles south of the Chatham Lighthouse. In 2011 there were 6,904 nests. We just censusedContinue reading “Common Terns on Monomoy”

In the USA you would have to be in rural New Mexico or Arizona, probably on federal land, to find the empty spaces that are so very common in Australia. There are tens of thousands of square miles (actually square kilometers) of roadless, empty-of-humans, mulga-covered, hot & dusty, and sometimes flooded back land. The AustralianContinue reading “An Afternoon (and Night) in the AU Bush”

Seabirds in June 2012 The previous blog showed a few of the whale images taken June 10th about 25 miles east of Chatham Light off the coast of Massachusetts. There were about 80 whales and thousands of shearwaters attending to a profusion of Sand Lance. The whales were mostly humpbacks although a few Minke skitteredContinue reading “Cape Cod Sea Birds”

June 10th (2012) was a glorious day here on Cape Cod. It was also glorious about 25 miles east of Chatham in the Atlantic. The New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance had a fundraising WhaleWatch trip and I was lucky to go along as a sort of staff birder (thank you to Krill Carson and NECWA).Continue reading “Humpback Whales at Work”

The birds that use wetlands are many and varied. There are herons and egrets, spoonbills and ibises, sandpipers, and terns, and gulls and raptors. There are as many and as varied a group of wetland birds as there are woodland or grassland birds. In migration there are all sorts of birds that end up atContinue reading “Australian Wetland Birds”

Fran and I drove north enjoying the views and countryside of northern Victoria and eventually southern New South Wales. There are farms and farming operations in this area, but much of the land is unable to receive dependable water so great expanses are simply rangeland or paddocks for grazing cattle and sheep. Much of theContinue reading “Deniliquin – New South Wales”

Australia gives whole new meaning to the phrase “yard bird”. Where we have chickadees, robins, and crows in modest numbers, the Australian yard will have an array of parrots, cockatoos, miners, and honeyeaters. The bird immediately below is a Noisy Miner – one of the Honeyeater tribe, and a very common bird whether in aContinue reading “Northern Victoria – farmland and empty places”

Uluru or Ayer’s Rock sits in the great red center, the outback. It is a remnant from millions of years ago and millions of years of erosional forces. Australia, like the rest of the earth’s surface has been through a lot. This page will recapitulate the last 200,000,000 years – no problem. Please don’t changeContinue reading “Australia — Ancient Land & Ancient People”

The author of a book on the natural history of Tasmania, Ted Davis, is a friend ours and lives on Cape Cod here in Massachusetts – go figure. We picked Ted’s brain and got some ideas about how to visit this island-state. We first allowed two days and then upped it to three full daysContinue reading “Tasmania – Well Worth the Trip”