10,000 Birds Month in Review: November 2005

After another month of blogging, we have much to be thankful for, including the lovely Rusty Blackbird, a winter denizen of the Bronx.

Actually, for the Core Team, this month was pretty slow as far as birding went.  I was fortunate enough to drop in at Maryland’s renowned Patuxent Research Refuge and the whole family made a cold weather excursion to Croton Point Park. Other than that, I had time for little more than marveling at my slowly increasing identification skills, observing bird-friendly themes in children’s shows, and watching helplessly as the neighborhood raptor perch was torn down. In honor of Thanksgiving, I shared my recipe for Caramelized Onions and Chestnuts and reminisced about an encounter with the other white meat, the Ocellated Turkey.

Charlie was, as usual, busier this month. He visited the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, AZ and expounded on two sexy birds from Mauritius, a Grey White-eye and a Cuckoo-shrike. He also reviewed not one, not two, but three books of interest to any world birders: Collins Bird Guide (Britain and Europe), Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands, and Shorebirds: An Illustrated Behavioural Ecology.