Piggy-backing on yesterday’s meadow close-up, here’s a thistle in bloom.
Photo By Chris Bosak
Thistle plant in full bloom. Although considered a weed by many, thistle is an important source of food and nest material for many meadow birds and insects.
Here is the latest in a series of close-up (macro) photographs I took last summer while tromping through the meadow properties of the Darien Land Trust. From July 24 to Aug. 31, I’ll post a different close-up meadow photograph on this site.
In 2005, a bird sighting in Arkansas caused major waves in the birding world. It pitted experts against experts and beginners against beginners. The potential sighting was of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, a large woodpecker long believed to be extinct. The sighting came along with a rough video, but not a clear enough one to answer any questions definitively. In fact, the video only separated the sides even more.
One of the skeptical experts was David Allen Sibley, who visited The Hour offices last month and I couldn’t resist asking his thoughts on the subject. The alleged sighting came in 2005, but the debate still rages on. Here are Sibley’s thoughts on the matter.
Birds of New England.com 