Author Archives: Chris Bosak

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About Chris Bosak

Bird columnist and nature photographer based in New England.

For the Birds column: Here’s the full story on that owl

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Photo by Chris Bosak A Great Gray Owl perches in a pine tree in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Gray Owl perches in a pine tree in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

Here is the latest For the Birds columns, which runs weekly in several New England newspapers.

…

I don’t typically chase rare birds around the region.

It’s not that I don’t want to see the birds, but either family or work obligations usually prohibit me from taking long drives to see a bird. I am often envious of the people who can drop everything, drive eight hours to wherever and look at a cool bird that is not typically seen in New England.

But a great gray owl in under four hours? That’s an effort I have to make. It is the largest owl in the world, by length anyway, and its flat, disc face elevates owl coolness to another level.

I still had work, however, but couldn’t risk waiting until the weekend should the bird decide to take off and not be found again. So I pulled a maneuver I used to do fairly often before I had kids: I basically pulled an all-nighter.

I slept restlessly from midnight to 2:15 a.m. Thursday morning and drove three hours to Keene to pick up my old friend Steve Hooper, of Sentinel photo department fame. Then we drove another 40 minutes to Newport, where this awesome bird had been seen in the same field each day for about a week straight. (I knew that thanks to the ABA rare bird alert.) Hoop and I followed the directions we found online and arrived at the scene at about 6:20 a.m. A rare bird alert message posted at 6:15 a.m. confirmed that the bird was indeed there. Thanks to Dylan Jackson of Sunapee for that update. I was minutes away from seeing my first great gray owl.

Continue reading →

Gardening with Melinda: Family Gardening Provides More Than a Bountiful Harvest

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Gardening can be a great family activity and children exposed to the outdoors and gardening are more focused, have less issues with attention deficit and score higher on tests.

Mother And Daughter Working On Allotment Together With Vegtables And Watering Can Smiling

By Melinda Myers

Gardeners know digging, planting, harvesting and even viewing a garden is good for the mind, body and spirit. It improves strength and flexibility, lowers blood pressure and elevates our mood. And this is true for all members of the family from the very young to the more seasoned.

Plan on sharing these benefits with yours or a friend’s children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews this growing season. Children, and even adults, who grow their own vegetables are more likely to eat them.  But gardening does even more to help our children. Research shows children exposed to the outdoors and gardening are more focused, have less issues with attention deficit and score better on tests. Girls exposed to gardens and green spaces are more confident and better able to handle peer pressure.

Here are a few ways to make gardening with family more fun and memorable.

Involve the whole family when planning the garden. Talk about the flowers everyone wants to grow and vegetables you all like to eat. Then break out the paper, old catalogs, scissors, crayons, pencils and rulers.  Young children can cut out pictures of their favorite vegetables and flowers and glue them on the paper. Older children can draw the garden to scale on graph paper and plot their choices in the garden. Continue reading →

One more heron shot, this one a closeup

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Photo by Chris Bosak A Great Blue Heron stands in a pond in Danbury, Conn., March 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Blue Heron stands in a pond in Danbury, Conn., March 2017.

You got the medium shot, the full-length shot and, finally, here’s the closeup. I’ve been a million great blue herons and would love to see a million more.

Full length shot of the heron; check out those legs

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Photo by Chris Bosak A Great Blue Heron rests on a log in a pond in Danbury, Conn., March 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Blue Heron rests on a log in a pond in Danbury, Conn., March 2017.

Well, you can see one leg anyway. The other is tucked into its feathers as a way to regulate blood flow and keep extremities from freezing — a ploy used by many birds. I like the spot of blue by the heron’s eye.

More heron photos to come shortly. Another heron was hanging out nearby, too. More on that one soon.

Gardening with Melinda: Grow a bigger garden in a smaller space

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Gardener’s Supply Company Planter boxes with built-in trellises like this Apex trellis planter enable gardeners to maximize their garden space for growing vegetables and flowers.

Gardener’s Supply Company
Planter boxes with built-in trellises like this Apex trellis planter enable gardeners to maximize their garden space for growing vegetables and flowers.

By Melinda Myers

Whether in the ground or on a balcony or deck, there’s always room to grow your own garden-fresh produce and beautiful flowers.  Space saving gardening techniques and products can help you increase productivity in any available space.

Consider elevated gardens and planter carts that not only save space, but make gardens more accessible. Movable carts like the Demeter Mobile Planter Cart allow you to grow flowers and produce in narrow spaces, store garden accessories and move the garden into the sunlight or out of the way of guests as needed.

Save more space by going vertical.  Look for containers and raised garden beds with built-in trellises and plant supports.  Just plant your pole beans, peas, cucumbers or tomatoes and attach them to the supports as they grow.  Support the large fruit of squash and melons with cloth or macramé slings. Just cradle the fruit in the sling and secure it to the trellis. You’ll not only save space, but reduce disease problems and make harvesting a breeze. Continue reading →

Great blue heron with breeding plumage in the snow

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Photo by Chris Bosak A Great Blue Heron rests on a log in a pond in Danbury, Conn., March 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Blue Heron rests on a log in a pond in Danbury, Conn., March 2017.

Despite the 14 inches of snow that fell in Danbury, Conn., a few days ago, this Great Blue Heron is ready for spring and sporting its breeding plumage. Late winter snow falls can make for some interesting photos for sure.

Last shot of the great gray owl

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Photo by Chris Bosak A Great Gray Owl hovers over a field in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Gray Owl hovers over a field in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

Here’s the only shot I manged to get of the owl in flight. I wasn’t in the right position as the owl was a few yards too far to the right (or I was too far to the left). As of Monday evening, the owl was still being seen regularly. We’ll see how the storm impacts things.

What a visit this has been from a great bird.

For up-to-date information, click here.

Great gray owl braves the snow (Newport, N.H.)

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Photo by Chris Bosak A Great Gray Owl perches in a pine tree and battles windy, snowy conditions in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Gray Owl perches in a pine tree and battles windy, snowy conditions in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

While visiting the great gray owl the other day, a few wind gusts and snow squalls rolled through adding to the uniqueness of the scene. The owl itself braved the conditions just fine … of course, it’s a bird of the Boreal Forest so extreme weather is part of life for these birds. If anything, the conditions made things more difficult for us humans, but I don’t think the owl really gave a hoot about our comfort.

Snow always adds an interesting element to photos anyway, but throw in a great gray owl as the subject and you have the potential for a really cool photo.

The owl is still being seen in Newport, N.H. as of this morning (Saturday, March 11, 2017). Thanks to Dylan Jackson of Sunapee, N.H. for the frequent updates for us out-of-town fans.

There has been some concern expressed on the rare bird alert list about some visitors not following proper wildlife viewing etiquette while checking out the bird. Indeed, during the short time I was there Thursday morning, one eager visitor approached way too closely and flushed the bird to another perch. I see this a lot when moose watching in northern New Hampshire. I understand the urge to get closer and closer, but the needs of the animal always have to come first.

If you go see the bird — and if you’re anywhere near Newport, N.H., I encourage you to do so — keep a respectful distance and let the owl go about its day. It needs to hunt and rest as always even though it’s in a foreign area.

Let me know if you venture to see the owl.

https://birdsofnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/great-gray-owl-3-c.jpg

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Gray Owl perches in a pine tree and battles windy, snowy conditions in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

I’m not a chaser, but a Great Gray Owl? Come on

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Photo by Chris Bosak A Great Gray Owl perches in a tree overlooking a field in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Gray Owl perches in a tree overlooking a field in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

As the headline says, I don’t typically chase rare birds around the region. It’s not that I don’t want to see the birds, but either family or work obligations usually prohibit me from taking long drives to see a bird.

But a Great Gray Owl within 3 1/2 hours? I gotta make that effort. I still had work but couldn’t risk waiting until the weekend should the bird decide to take off and not be found again. So I pulled a maneuver I used to do fairly often before I had kids: I basically pulled an all-nighter. I slept restlessly from midnight to 2:15 a.m. and drove three hours to Keene, N.H., to pick up my old friend Steve Hooper. Then we drove another 40 minutes to Newport, N.H., where this awesome bird had been seen in the same field each day for about a week straight. (I knew that thanks to the ABA rare bird alert.)

Hoop and I followed the directions and arrived at the scene at about 6:20 a.m. A rare bird alert message posted at 6:15 a.m. confirmed that the bird was indeed there. I was minutes away from seeing my first Great Gray Owl.

We walked a short distance down a trail, saw a handful of people and joined the small crowd. Sure enough, there was the owl, sitting in a bare deciduous tree surveying the field and ignoring his fans.

At one point it flew to another nearby deciduous tree and then eventually flew another short distance to a pine tree. The wind was strong and snow squalls came and went, but otherwise it was a rather pleasant day for the owl and his human visitors — especially for New Hampshire in early March.

I was hoping to see one more flight, but time was short. I had to drop off Hoop and drive the 3 1/2 hours back to Connecticut to get to work in the a.m. So by 10:30 a.m. I had driven to New Hampshire and back, and saw my first-ever Great Gray Owl. Just the old days.

Here are a few photos with more to come in the days ahead. Also coming soon is more information on the Great Gray Owl as a species.

No promises on how long it will stick around, of course, but here’s a link to a news story about the owl with directions on where to find it. 

And here’s the link to the ABA’s Rare Bird Alert with updates on the owl (and other sightings).

 

Photo by Chris Bosak A Great Gray Owl perches in a pine tree in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Gray Owl perches in a pine tree in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.


Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Gray Owl perches in a tree overlooking a field in Newport, N.H., in March 2017.

Putting another homemade bird feeder to the test

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Photo by Chris Bosak A white-breasted nuthatch takes a sunflower seed from a homemade platform feeder in March 2017, in Danbury, Conn.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A white-breasted nuthatch takes a sunflower seed from a homemade platform feeder in March 2017, in Danbury, Conn.

I know I’m not breaking any ground with the design of this homemade bird feeder, but figured I’d share it anyway. I’ve been wanting a platform feeder for a while now. The ones I made last year simply by cutting a thin section of a tree trunk with a chainsaw worked for a few months, but I didn’t treat them and they dried up, cracked warped and eventually fell apart.

On to plan B, which was to check out some offerings at stores. I saw one I liked but its design was so simple I couldn’t justify spending money on it. So I mulled it over and procrastinated for a long while before heading into the basement to sift through the scrap wood left by the previous owners of the house.

Almost right away I found an old, wooden cabinet door. The bottom (or inside) already had two thin pieces of wood running near the edges. All I had to do was add two more pieces to close the box and keep the seed contained and I would be done. Just as easily said than done.

The only tricky part was getting it to hang straight, or at least relatively straight. The small chain I used at first just wasn’t cutting it. It would hang low on one end so I’d adjust the links and only make it worse. So I dug out some old carabiner/keychain tchotchkes and linked the same number on each side of the feeder. It still didn’t hang perfectly straight, but that’s fine because I like it slightly angled toward the house anyway. Also, the angle will allow for drainage in heavy rains. (I love when I can justify flaws in my creations.)

As you can see, it’s also a fairly sizable feeder so I can offer a variety of foods at once. It’s working great already and I look forward to sharing photos of future visitors. It’s got rose-breasted grosbeak written all over it. Time will tell.

Photo by Chris Bosak A white-breasted nuthatch takes a sunflower seed from a homemade platform feeder in March 2017, in Danbury, Conn.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A white-breasted nuthatch takes a sunflower seed from a homemade platform feeder in March 2017, in Danbury, Conn.