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Angela Minor has lived, traveled, and birded from the southern U.S. to the Rocky Mountains and beyond, Alaska, throughout the Caribbean, and in seven countries in Europe. As a freelance travel writer, she authors the state park birding series at Bird Watcher’s Digest, writes for several travel publications including Blue Ridge Country, Smoky Mountain Living, World of Cruising, and serves as a field editor for Birds & Blooms.
Author: Rich Lanchantin, CEO, Qstream With unemployment rates at a 10-year low, it simply isn’t practical to buy your way to sales performance by cherry-picking top reps from the market. Instead, the most resilient and successful sales organizations are building programs that draw maximum value from more of their existing reps. This requires going beyond one-size-fits-all training and development programs that are measured by simple pass/fail certifications or completion rates.
This Earth Day (April 22), Nat Geo WILD is airing a special commercial-free musical event, Symphony for Our World. It’s a beautiful hour-long special that has zero narration, and pairs breathtaking wildlife footage with original music created by rock band.
Two reactions on hearing that Steve Howell and Brian Sullivan have written a guide entitled Peterson Guide to Bird Identification–in 12 Steps : (1) What? Another identification guide?, (2) Who? An identification guide by Steven N. G. Howell and Brian L. Sullivan? This should be interesting. Two reactions on receiving my review copy from publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: (1) Small book, colorful design, (2) There really are 12 steps and they are not in the order I expected.
According to eBird , I have been entering checklists since December 23, 2009, and I find it an incredibly useful way to maintain my lists, plan birding travel, and keep up on my favorite hotspots. eBird automatically organizes my observations by country, state, and county, and keeps running totals for my life and year lists. Indeed, without eBird, I would not have any lists at all.
Morning at the slopes of Mt. Povlen, a quick stop filled with a song that sounds familiar, but I haven’t heard it since last year. Checking it on my phone – yes, it is an Ortolan Bunting ! Our destination lies further west, along the Drina River, which marks the border between Serbia and Bosnia. We are heading to the 6 km / 4 mi long and 500 m / 1600 ft deep Tresnjica River Gorge, on a small tributary of the Drina originating on the slopes of Povlen – and a Griffon Vulture Sanctuary.
While on our beach vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina in early April I took full advantage of our location just off the beach. In the afternoon the sun was at my back and the birds on the beach and over the water were perfectly illuminated for some nice digiscoping opportunities. Terns, gulls, pelicans, gannets, and ducks all made their way past and all were digiscoped to within an inch of their lives.
While on our beach vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina in early April I took full advantage of our location just off the beach. In the afternoon the sun was at my back and the birds on the beach and over the water were perfectly illuminated for some nice digiscoping opportunities. Terns, gulls, pelicans, gannets, and ducks all made their way past and all were digiscoped to within an inch of their lives.
Recognizable spring weather may not have arrived in your part of the Northern Hemisphere just yet, but spring has sprung nonetheless. Countless flocks of frigid, sodden birds must be wondering whether they took a wrong turn somewhere. Migrants are on the move, if you can bear to be out looking for them! In between ice storms, I visited Brighton’s Brickyard Trail, a nice little walk that can be excellent for sparrows.
Though I grew up where the Hudson Valley meets the Catskill Mountains, in the heart of Black Bear country, I can count my encounters with said bears on the fingers of one hand. In my young teenage years I was walking through the woods and was suddenly startled by a young bear dropping out of a tree only about five meters from me but before I could even react it was running away.
If the cold weather across much of the United States is any indication than T.S. Eliot was correct when he stated that “April is the cruellest month.” Despite the cruel, cold weather I was out and about on both Saturday and Sunday morning, despite the added cruelty of just having returned from (slightly) warmer North Carolina late on Friday night.
I have written before of the intersection between the human need for entertainment and the bird need to live bird lives and make more birds: it partakes of both the compelling and the ridiculous at the best of times. And now is the best of times. The extended winter of our cold, damp discontent is made glorious summer by the antics of a couple of Red-tailed Hawks.
OK. You probably know that I live where we have many, many woodpeckers. One of the most abundant woodpeckers in Oak Run , where I live, is the Acorn Woodpecker ( Melanerpes formicivorus ). The photos above and below are an adult male Acorn Woodpecker hanging on a hummingbird feeder at the University of California Hopland Research and Extension Center where I attended a meeting back in February.
Author: Kevin F. Davis Excellent sales managers aren’t made overnight. As a manager, you’re always learning and growing along with your sales team. Every team member has a unique reaction to your management style, and it takes a great manager to navigate all those unique situations and relationships. Here are five off-the-beaten-trail tactics you can use to foster those relationships and move toward being an excellent sales manager. 1.
In New York, by the third weekend in April one expects to be awash in wood-warblers, overwhelmed by orioles, and generally boggled by birds newly arrived from the neotropics. Of course, it never works out that way and the steady stream of April arrivals is nothing like the flood of bird-life that courses north in mid-May. Nonetheless, the birding can be good, very good, and there is the lack of foliage to make up for the lack of birds which means that it’s much easier to see what birds are
A couple of weeks ago a group of New York’s better birders were out birding in Suffolk County when one of the four found an interesting shorebird, one which she couldn’t identify immediately. For Pat Lindsay to not know what a shorebird is when she spots one in New York State is a very unusual occurrence and her three fellow birders quickly convened, figured out the bird as a quartet, and got the word out to the birding hordes.
Navigated 360° tours, like YourVRTours, advance pipelines by engaging clients further along the sales funnel. These immersive experiences provide comprehensive property insights, increasing buyer intent and readiness. By embracing navigated tours, agents can optimize property exposure, better qualify leads, and streamline the sales process. Stay ahead in the ever-evolving real estate landscape with innovative technology that elevates buyer journeys and progresses pipelines more effectively.
With all of my gallivanting across a small swath of the American Southwest last week, I plumb forgot to ask you where you were birding. Hopefully, you can find consolation for this oversight in the fact that I saw lots of juicy (figuratively, not literally) birds from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. But here we are again, facing a weekend with unlimited birding potential… I’m back in wintry Rochester wondering how I’m going to spot American Woodcocks in a snowstorm.
With March in our collective rear view mirror, a certain madness subsides. April makes much more sense in most parts of the world, at least from a phenological perspective. You have much to look forward to, so make the most of every weekend. Of the several FOY birds encountered this weekend, I was most pleased with American Kestrels , which we spotted on power lines along much of our journey while traveling on Easter.
Another weekend, another example of how volatile weather patterns have become. For example, we in Rochester have been assured that Wednesday will reach 80 degrees or so. Yet, we had a bit of snow yesterday! How wild was your weekend weather? These capricious conditions can’t be good for birds either. I dipped grievously this weekend on attempts at woodcocks and owls, including the bitterly brief Boreal Owl at Owl Woods.
Believe it or not, migration has really arrived. Just about any part of the world in which birds move in response to seasonal signals now bears witness to birds on the move. Perhaps migration has already hit your area hard or, instead, is just entering your airspace. In any case, every weekend during migration can present a precious opportunity to catch favorite species for the first or last time this year.
Don’t freak out, but even the most frost-rimed regions in the Northern Hemisphere have noticed subtle signs of spring. Such seasonal signifiers include but are not limited to incipient blossoms, modest budding, children in shorts, and possibly even some new birds. I dropped in at Montezuma NWR before the errant American White Pelican could pull itself away from the carp-filled canal.
You may know by now that my beat as international birder is being pinched by re-allocation of routes from our DMARDS-dependent fleet to our cost-effective colleagues. Our range of destinations is reduced as required and this week I said a fond farewell to Buenos Aires , Argentina. This post will be a reflection on how much pleasure the city has given me and the posts that it has inspired.
It’s hard to believe that here in the northeastern United States, we’re only two or three weeks away from the peak of spring migration. We had snow and freezing rain yet again around Albany yesterday, and visits to my local birding patches in the last few days have turned up the same mix of migrants I was seeing at the end of last week. It seems like everything is in a holding pattern for now.
So many parts of the United States are afflicted with unseasonable cold that spring feels more like a theory than an actual season. Case in point, someone wished me a “Happy 109th Day of January” today… in the middle of a small snow squall! But don’t let the weird weather fool you; birds are on the move. Some very interesting rarities have been abiding at Montezuma NWR, so look for me if you’re there this weekend.
April is one of those major months of change, and as with things that are in flux, it tends to be fickle. In the temperate zone, it teases with warm winds that switch to an icy punch in a matter of days. We see some buds on the trees, hear the sweet little songs of Yellow-rumped Warblers and don’t want to have to wait for more of their colorful brethren.
The northeast United States has been enduring what has seemed like an eternal winter this year, with day after day of unseasonably cool temperatures and even a few April snow showers here in Albany, New York. In writing my last few reviews – one of a rather warming Irish whisky, and another of the world’s most famous stout – I really was hopeful that I was bidding a fitting farewell to this unwelcome lingering winter for good.
This is the third year that my family and some our close friends did a vacation together. Two years ago it was Culebra, Puerto Rico. Last year it was New Providence in the Bahamas. This year, traveling in April instead of February, we decided to do a road trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. To get there we would need to get out of New York, through New Jersey into Delaware, and then on through Maryland and Virginia until finally reaching our destination.
I received this item free of charge from Chewy in exchange for my honest review. Spring is finally arriving in my part of the world, and with it, the return of many birds! Because we usually have a lot of.
This weeks posting finds me north of the Whananaki area, which is north of Auckland, New Zealand. We are spending some time here on my wife’s family property right on the water. What an incredible place, and as a bonus, it is loaded with birds. Unfortunately, there have been no new birds that I can check off my “Wish List” but if you have to hang out in a place, this is pretty awesome.
Author: Theresa Thomas, VP Strategic Solutions, Hinda Incentives Have you ever daydreamed about cloning your top sales performers? Think of it. No more endless recruiting to find a salesperson like Jane who qualifies and closes sales in record time. All your customers would have the pleasure of only dealing with your best of the best. It would spell the end of those awkward review meetings.
Author: Jen Wagstaff More than 10 years spent working in sales training have taught me to understand and turn around salespeople who are struggling. Here are four steps I’ve found most effective to re-motivate a salesperson who’s falling behind. 1. Start positive – identify their strengths. If you’re a manager in charge of one person, or a team of salespeople who aren’t pulling their weight, the pressure to offer a solution can be intense.
Author: Jeb Blount There is no easy button in sales. Prospecting is hard, emotionally draining work, and it is the price you have to pay to earn a high income. Fact: Most sales professionals are not too keen on prospecting. No surprise there. But great reps suck it up and prospect, prospect, prospect; crushing their numbers as a result. These top-earning sales stars are relentless, unstoppable and obsessive about keeping their pipeline full of qualified opportunities.
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