Edward O'Connor – Writer, editor, part-time birder
One of my correspondents has asked how religious I am. This is a legitimate question—it’s one I sometimes ask myself—, but the answer is complicated. I’m no good with abstractions, or with arguments for that matter, so to illustrate my thoughts, I’ll tell a couple stories instead. Both stories are factual and they share … Read more
In August, my wife and I spent two weeks in Ireland, where we joined a bike tour through the region on the west coast known as Connemara. As with many things in Ireland, nobody agrees on the exact boundaries of this area, so let’s just say it includes much of the coastal parts of … Read more
I talked with a birder several years ago who was also an amateur artist. We were on a field trip to Amherst Island, where there’d been reports of a Eurasian Wigeon. At the time, this was a life bird for me, so I was understandably excited. My companion was indifferent. He wanted to talk about … Read more
A few weeks ago, I spent an hour at the Black-crowned Night Heron colony on the Leslie Street Spit, watching the birds build their nests. The males were in their mating finery, which means bright plumage—cream-colored below, grey and slate-blue above—and two long, thin plumes that stick out of the head and arch over the … Read more
Walking on the Leslie Street Spit last week, I came upon a pair of Canada Geese. They were belligerent. Hissing and blocking the path, they refused to let me pass. I soon saw why. A gosling sat in the weeds just off the path, and the parent birds wanted to protect it from me. The … Read more
With butterflies, it’s color that attracts us first, but with moths, it’s their names. Just to scratch the surface, to get a hint of what they offer in North America, let the following names fall trippingly from your tongue: Rufous-banded Crambid, Pigeon Acrobasis, Frosty Olethreutes, Crepuscular Rock-rose Moth, Spun Glass Slug Moth, Ferruginous Eulin, Feather-duster … Read more
Well, there went May in its hurried fashion: the height of spring migration and the busiest month in the garden allotment. Here are highlights from that first field of activity. Those from the garden will come later. I keep a list each year—part of a friendly rivalry with a fellow-birder—of the spring warblers I see. … Read more
I was walking the Leslie Street Spit last December with binoculars in hand but no camera, when I found a Saw-whet Owl sitting in a spruce. The bird surprised me for two reasons. First, its size. All Saw-whets are tiny—on average, about eight inches tall—but this was the smallest, most fragile specimen I’d ever seen. … Read more
I’ve been thinking a lot about death and taxes. Death, because I had open-heart surgery last September and a stroke (minor, but still) the first week of January. Taxes, because every year at this time, I deliver a packed 9-x-12 envelope to my extraordinary accountant, who works her miracles in an office across the street … Read more
