http://www.record-eagle.com en-us Copyright CNHI All Rights Reserved. 5 Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:00:54 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_279093553.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_279093553.html Every now and then, people we know well say or do something that surprises us. Thus it was for me a couple of weeks ago when my good friend Margaret Ellen and I engaged in one of our marathon telephone conversations. It's fair to say that we know each other well enough to predict how the other might react to a given situation. Still, her reaction to fall migration was one I would never have expected. Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:00:51 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_251095903.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_251095903.html In 1971, George Archibald and Ron Sauey met at Cornell University where they were graduate students studying crane behavior. The coming together of these two remarkable young men changed the future for cranes around the planet. Two years after they became acquainted, Archibald and Sauey took action to save the birds. Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:00:53 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_216100330.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_216100330.html On a perfect May morning three years ago, Glen Chown took time away from his work to guide me around a 6,000-acre tract of land that the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy was working to purchase. Glen, executive director of the conservancy, drove first to a large meadow; he said local birders had persuaded the organization to maintain the fields for the benefit of upland nesting species. Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:00:52 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_188102049.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_188102049.html Three years ago, a friend and I conducted a bird survey at Wexford Sand Company south of Mesick. We were astonished to find nearly 50 nesting species of birds on the property. The mine, and its wealth of birds, was the subject for one of my columns. Shortly after the piece appeared, a reader sent a letter expressing doubt that the mine could provide habitat for so many species. Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:56 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_153094633.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_153094633.html One morning last month, I was in the barber chair at Shear Pleasure in Northport when a call came in from my husband. He called to tell me that Annette Deibel said there were flocks of what she thought were Bonaparte's gulls in front of her home. Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:55 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_125095123.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_125095123.html Three weeks ago, a message in my e-mail inbox had a picture of a dead tree attached. The tree was riddled with deep, elongated holes. Her message was short, "What is doing this?" Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:48 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_097094132.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_097094132.html At one time, whooping cranes were once scattered throughout a wide range, extending from central Canada south to Mexico and from Utah to the Atlantic coast. Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:00:54 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_062101630.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_062101630.html Ten years ago, an assignment to write about the great kiskadee sent me to the Rio Grande Valley to find my favorite south Texas bird. The Fourth International Partners-in-Flight Conference took me back to the valley this year. Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:00:56 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_034100059.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_034100059.html When my husband and I were visiting our San Diego friends Mike and Ellene Gibbs, we discussed the possibility of meeting in Tucson next year for a bit of birding. I said we would take them to the sewage treatment ponds. Ellene responded dryly that the suggestion sounded exciting. Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:00:56 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_006094529.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_006094529.html A little more than a week after my review of his book appeared in this space, I had the good fortune to spend a day birding with Douglas Tallamy. His book, "Bringing Nature Home," provides a wonderful template for ways each of us can help those birds whose populations are declining. Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:00:54 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_336110052.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_336110052.html Last month, on the day that my niece got married, I helped her -- along with her mother, her aunt and her elegant satin dress -- into the limo that would shuttle them off to church. Then, with less than an hour to get ready myself, I picked up my new book and began to reread a favorite passage. Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:00:56 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_308094624.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_308094624.html In the middle of the 19th century, Emily Dickinson paid homage to bobolinks in her poems. She equated the bird's melodic morning song with the dawning of the day -- and when the birds migrated in fall, she declared that the "rowdy of the meadow" was gone. This beautiful member of the blackbird family is particularly close to my own heart, and was the species I most hoped would come to nest when my husband and I bought the property that is now Charter Sanctuary. Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:00:56 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_280110040.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_280110040.html Late August found me again traveling on Amtrak, this time aboard the Capitol Limited bound for Washington, D.C. Several invitations to present programs on bird conservation from nature centers in New England was the reason for the trip, and I used the opportunity to spend Labor Day Weekend in our nation's capital, where I was able to bird with Greg Butcher. Sun, 02 Sep 2007 10:57:00 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_245105807.html http://www.record-eagle.com/kaycharter/local_story_245105807.html While it may not seem plausible, the use of cypress mulch in gardens, a cormorant population explosion in the Great Lakes and "beach grooming" have a great deal in common. All three, in fact, result in significant habitat destruction.