This week my wife and I joined a guide from The Nature Conservancy along with a few employees and other volunteers for a paddle through Cumberland Marsh in Eastern Virginia. We learned a lot about the restoration work TNC has done here including the removal of two dams. This site also has strong populations of a couple of endangered plants including sensitive joint-vetch.
Cumberland Marsh launch site
We drove back to a limited-access part of the preserve to launch and had about a 4 mile loop trip.
The marsh during a snack break
There were nice views of a pair of northern harriers, a close fly-by from a bald eagle, and several belted kingfishers along the way. The marsh, especially near the start, had several hundred, if not thousands, of red-winged blackbirds and grackles flying around.
Bidens in bloom
We also encountered some wild rice which the indigenous people harvest.
Wild rice is the tall, thin stuff in the front left
And the chatting with all of the very interesting people was the real highlight. We have been on several such trips at various locations and with various groups. Everyone on this trip was interesting to talk with and came from different backgrounds. Not something you find on every paddle.
A few of our companions
It was a great time and I'm looking forward to meeting some of our companions again on future adventures and volunteer activities.
One of my major volunteering efforts is mapping storm tides as part of Wetlands Watch and their Catch the King. I've written about this a few times in the past including back in 2017 when we set a world record for the most contributions to an environmental survey.
This year, the astronomical high tide for September and October are pretty close so we did a "Wet Run" for the September tide and the full Catch the King event in October. Early in the week during September we had a steady northeast wind that piles up water down here in the Southwest Chesapeake Bay so the tide even higher than the astronomical predictions. I was able to get out multiple days to do some mapping around my area.
At one of our local boat launches, the parking lot was cut off by the flooding. Water crossed the road approaching the parking lot and the ramp area itself was flooding to mid-calf level.
Flooded parking lot. There is two set of boat-trailer parking rows underwater between here and the river
Close up of the kayak launch that usually goes down to the water
There is a boat ramp somewhere under that water. Again the floating dock is above ground level
Luckily, this stayed in the nuisance / minor level so it mainly flooded open areas and yards and didn't do much damage to property. At the first place above, they did fail to secure the trash bins fisherman use. That unfortunately dumped a lot of waste and debris back into the bay. Events like this can really impact local water quality negatively.
Finally, I set up my camera to record the flooding in the marsh behind our house. Notice the animals making use of the recently flooded areas. This is a phenomena that we often see with herons and other animals feeding high up in the marsh during and after high tides.
It is a week later as I write this and yet another storm is passing by and bringing more water. I'm about to head out for some more mapping.
On Aug 9, my wife and I joined three other Virginia Master Naturalists for the Northwest sector in the Williamsburg annual butterfly count. The count is in support of North American Butterfly Association (NABA) and locally sponsored by the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory (CVWO). We have done several other counts in the region the last several years but this is our first time on the Williamsburg count. Usually in early August we can expect very hot and humid to very hot and very humid weather. This year we got lucky with the temperature and humidity at quite comfortable levels.
Most of our stops were manicured gardens instead of the wild areas that we have been in for other counts. This included a plant nursery, a community garden, or allotments, the Williamsburg Botanical Gardens, and a couple of private gardens. With all of the blooming garden plants, there were a lot of eastern tiger swallowtails, monarchs, and sachems (a skipper) throughout the day.
Eastern swallowtail
Common buckeye
We started at the plant nursery with
permission to be there before they opened for sales. The agastache
(Anise hyssop) was covered with tiger swallowtails. We counted at least 8 moving between the blooms and at times, it seemed like a
lot more with many in the air at a time. There were also high numbers of three different skipper
species.
A quick stop at the James City County library where there is
a small storm water pond netted us several pearl crescents and common
buckeyes. Both high counts for the day.
Sachem on a zinnia
Red-spotted purple seen in the woods
The allotment gardens were
a busy place; both people and butterflies. Probably half the gardens
had people tending them on the Saturday morning. And with the
blooming vegetable plants and a lot of zinnias, the butterflies were
busy as well. We had sixty individual butterflies from 17 species;
most at the allotments. This included 13 monarchs, another 8 tiger
swallowtails, 8 variegated fritilaries, and 11 sachems. We also
walked around some of the wooded edges and sports fields. A soccer
field hosted 45 killdeer which would have been a great count if we
were counting birds instead of butterflies. But it was still an
impressive sight.
Our last major stop was at the
Williamsburg Botanical Gardens. This was again full of tiger
swallowtails along with a handful of sleepy oranges and a scattering
of other species. We also had a very accommodating ruby-throated
hummingbird.
Rudy-throated hummingbird (a bird, not a butterfly😁 )
All told, after 6 and a half hours
looking for butterflies, we had seen 137 individuals from 20 species, including this male and female pair of zabulon skippers.
Last time, I shared our adventures at Merritt Island, but our Florida trip had even more in store. We were lucky to find a place to stay right on the Indian River in Titusville, just a short drive from Merritt Island. I knew it was on the river but hadn't expected as great of view as we had. Our balcony looked directly across the river at NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building—an impressive sight every time we stepped outside.
Vehicle Assembly Building behind an osprey
Backyard Birding & A Breakfast Showdown
From the afternoon we arrived, there was plenty to see on the river. Rafts of lesser scaup floated by, pelicans and cormorants soared by on the breeze, and one morning, a yellow-throated warbler stopped by during breakfast. But the real entertainment came courtesy of an osprey enjoying its own morning meal on the property's boat lift.
As the osprey dug into its fresh catch, a couple of ring-billed gulls took notice. One gull swooped in, eyeing the fish, only to be met with a sharp osprey scream. But that didn’t stop it. The gull returned, playing a game of patience—each time the osprey looked down to take a bite, the gull edged closer. The moment the osprey looked up, the gull froze, as if to say, “Nothing to see here.” Step by step, the gull inched forward, waiting for just the right moment.
When the osprey was too distracted, the gull seized its chance and snatched a bite!
That little victory boosted confidence its because soon, two gulls were tag-teaming, each taking turns creeping closer. The osprey did its best to defend the meal, flaring its wings and squawking in protest, but the gulls were relentless. After another stolen bite, the osprey had enough and took off with its fish, hoping for a more peaceful breakfast spot. I like to think it found one, but let’s be real—the gulls probably followed.
Front Row Seats to a SpaceX Launch
Being so close to the Kennedy Space Center, we had another amazing opportunity—a SpaceX launch. We’ve been lucky enough to see a shuttle launch in the past, and I once caught a launch on a work trip. Living near Wallops Island, we sometimes see launches from there too, though from quite a distance.
This time we didn't even have to go anywhere to get front row seats. Step outside a few minutes before launch, enjoy, and then return to hot cocoa and desert.
Every winter, my wife and I try to sneak away from the chilly Virginia weather for a few days of warmth and—of course—birding! This year, we kicked off the New Year with a quick trip to Florida before a work commitment. It had been a decade since we'd explored the Space Coast and even longer since we’d visited in winter, so we were eager to see what we could find.
A Day at Merritt Island
Our first full day was spent at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, and it didn’t take long before the birding magic began. Driving in, we spotted a loggerhead shrike perched on a power line. These little guys are a rare sight back home, but a regular find in Florida.
We made our way to the Black Point Wildlife Drive, where the morning was wonderful. Right at the entrance, a mixed flock of long-billed and short-billed dowitchers gathered, giving us a chance to finally feel confident distinguishing between the two. Studying up the might before paid off and we added a lifer to start the day.
There was also this gorgeous snowy egret walking through the pond close to us. I love their yellow slipper.
Snow Egret
Rounding a bend, we stumbled upon a scene straight out of a wildlife documentary: a massive congregation of great egrets, snowy egrets, white and glossy ibis, great blue herons, and—stealing the show—the roseate spoonbills. It was mesmerizing watching them take flight in bursts, their pink feathers glowing in the sunlight.
Ibis, egrets, and spoonbills
a friendly pair of glossy ibis and roseate spoonbill
Spoonbill and egret in flight
For the last picture above, the great egret and been flying over and the spoonbill took off and flying faster, passed the egret.
Further along, a large flock of ducks had gathered, including a blue-winged teal and an exciting find—a Eurasian wigeon mixed in with the American wigeons. These unexpected sightings are what make birding so rewarding!
Blue-winged teal
We took a break from the car to walk one of the short trails and spotted two Florida specialties: an anhinga and a reddish egret. The egret put on quite the performance, dashing through the water in its signature, erratic hunting style. Always a treat to watch!
Anhinga drying off after a dive
Reddish egret
Green heron watching for lunch
Searching for Manatees and Flamingos
After lunch, we swung by the visitor center for a stroll, though it was pretty quiet. Then, we set off to Haulover Canal in search of manatees. A few made an appearance, but they were mostly teasing us with quick glimpses before disappearing again. On the river side of the canal, we also tried (and failed) to spot a reported American flamingo—no luck this time!
A Second Visit & A Colorful Surprise
A few days later, after a failed attempt to see manatees at Blue Springs (a two-hour car line? No thanks!), we returned to Merritt Island for another round of birding. This time, the visitor center feeders had a special treat—painted buntings!
Merritt Island never disappoints. This refuge is truly one of the crown jewels of the National Wildlife Refuge system, and it was definitely a highlight of our trip. (Well, at least until our last day, but that’s a story for another time...)
[Editorial help from ChatGPT; all photos taken by Bryan Barmore]
As I showed in the companion post about my experiences during the 2024 total solar eclipse, I made an Arduino-based light and temperature sensor to record the changes during the eclipse. The goal was to record at a regular interval from the start to the end of the eclipse. The set-up involves four main components beyond the Arduino: a photoresistor, a digital temperature sensor, a way to write data to an SD card, and a clock to track the time of day. While the Arduino has some built-in timing capabilities, they always restart at 0 when the power is turned on. A real-time clock has a watch battery so it can keep the time even when turned off.
I have a data recording shield from Adafruit that includes the SD card system and the clock all on one board that fits on top of the Arduino board. That provided two of the components. Light and temperature sensors are pretty common. I settled on using a photoresistor that came with my starter kit and a digital temperature sensor that was part of a suite of sensors.
For the photoresistor, I needed to build a voltage divider so I could measure the change in resistance. Finding the right value for the fixed resistor in the divider can be a challenge and one I largely failed at in the end as you'll see. Measuring the light is one of the earliest lessons in the starter kit so I just copied that code over. Likewise, the temperature sensor has a simple tutorial program that I copied in. Below is the breadboard layout with the data logging shield hiding an Arduino.
Breadboard view of the sensors
The clock needs to be set whenever a new battery is put in or if it has drifted over time. When I was doing testing of the recorder, I noticed that during some tests, I was getting default times instead of the real time. But other times, it worked fine. I was focused on getting the rest of the system working so I hadn't focused on the time but it was annoying. It was also messing up which file I wrote to as the filename was constructed from the date. Obviously something was wrong with the set-up or the code. It wasn't making sense that it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. I finally thought to test the battery and the voltage was low so it was about dead. When I was testing and I noticed the wrong time, I would reprogram it but then leave everything plugged in to the computer while doing testing. Since the clock was still powered, it held the time fine. But if I took it off computer power for long, the battery would fail and the clock would reset. A new battery quickly fixed that.
I settled on recording data every five seconds. Each time through the loop, I read the light and temperature values, then I could write them out to the SD card along with the time. I didn't need precise timing for this so I used the built-in delay function instead of checking the time from the clock. I was a little concerned about generating too much data but that wasn't a valid concern. In the end, the file was only 141 KB. And that included some additional debugging fields for each write.
I took the working system outside one sunny day for an extended test. When I looked at the data after about an hour I noticed the temperature climbed pretty steadily getting up to near 100 degrees F on a day with weather only in the low 70's. I suspected the sensor was heating up in the direct sunlight and that was giving the high readings. I needed a way to shade the sensor while still letting air flow around it. A box would trap air and be slow to respond to temperature changes. I also needed to have light reach the photoresistor. I tried an open-weave basket over part of the breadboard but that was hard to cover over the temperature sensor. So I ran the photoresistor wires through the open weave so the light sensor was on top while the basket shaded the temperature sensor. But that turned out to be awkward to connect and disconnect the wires for transport. I settle on an index card folded over like a tent to shade the temperature sensor but leaving the rest of the set up exposed to the sun. That worked OK but might have contributed to the fluctuating temperatures recorded.
The day of the event I set the board out on a side table and put the tent cover on it and let it start recording. All went to plan except for the light calibration. I had played around with the fixed resistor in the voltage divider to try and make sure I covered a good range. Apparently a flashlight is much dimmer than in the sun so my middle point for calibration was much too dim and throughout most of the partial eclipse I was maxing out the sensor. Only right at totality could you see the light drop off. That's a bummer but OK considering this was about my fourth priority on the day.
Below is the full event's data. You can see the light is flat for all except the shortest amount of times as totality hits. The temperature rises as the afternoon progresses and then starts dropping off as more and more of the sun is covered.
In total, it was a fun project even if I ended up deciding to do it late so it was a bit rushed and not as well tested as needed.
This spring we were able to experience our first, but hopefully not last, total solar eclipse. Even having read lots about eclipse experiences, it greatly exceeded our expectations.
We were lucky that my parents live in the path of totality, so we made early reservations to stay near them. After checking out the options and the eclipse coverage, we all decided that watching from their front yard was our best option. No traffic to deal with, plenty of access to food and drinks, cover if the weather turned on us. Plus we could have more comfortable chairs.
The weather forecast the days leading up to the eclipse weren't great with predictions of overcast skies ranging from 60-80% likely. But things started to turn for the better in the last few days. It was cloudy on the drive up and even a bit a rain as we arrived Sunday. However, Monday, the day of the big event, turned out to be a beautiful day. There were a few sparse clouds in the morning but they cleared by early afternoon and we had a gorgeous, sunny day.
All the optics are ready and protected
The eclipse started around 2:00 pm so shortly after lunch we started to set up. I had my camera with a solar filter set up on one tripod. Sharon set up our birding scope on the other, also with a filter. We hadn't originally planned to use the scope but I didn't consider the size of the lens hood for my camera when I first bought a solar filter and just went off the screw-on filter size for the lens. That filter ended up being too small to fit, so I had to buy a bigger size. The first, smaller, one did fit the scope, so now we could watch up-close in real-time and get photographs. We also had glasses for everyone and laid a white sheet out on the ground.
Some more friends joined us
At 1:53 the partial eclipse started with just the slightest sliver of the sun disappearing. As the next hour progressed we kept seeing more and more of the sun disappear behind the moon. For most of that time, the effects were hard to see if you weren't looking at the sun.
Through the scope we could easily make out a couple of sunspots and use those to help track the progress of the moon. We also used a colander to project little sun shapes on the sidewalk. A great way to see the eclipse if you don't have your solar protection with you.
Using a colander to project the partial eclipse
Somewhere around 90% coverage, we could start to notice changes in the quality of the light. It was detectably dimmer; kind of like at dusk but since the sun was still high above, it didn't quite seem like dusk. Sharon pointed out that it was dim but still a single point of light so we were casting sharp shadows. Not something you see at dusk or overcast days. Very quickly the light kept fading and we could see the automatic garage lights turning on around the neighborhood.
In the final seconds before totality we could see the light quickly fading. On the sheet and the sidewalk we saw shadow waves as the dim light refracted through the atmosphere. We had read about this, hence the seemingly random sheet on the ground, but it was nothing like we imagined. Almost spooky in the dim light.
We all removed our glasses as the last of the sun went behind the moon. Along the visible horizon we could see light, looking out beyond the extent of the moon's shadow to where it was still day. Seeing the shadow move over us and then being able to see the sun's corona was an amazing experience that is hard to put into words.
Although totality lasted more than three minutes for us, it went by quickly. I tried firing off a lot of photographs but at first I had failed to remove the solar filter so all I got was blackness. Once I realized that, I did take several more but didn't do the bracketing that I had wanted to do. So the images turned out fine but I didn't get the range of corona that I was hoping for.
Totality
In the video below, you can see the shadow approaching as things get dark, the lights turn on, and then hear us react to totality. It ends with the sunlight coming back up. Again, I didn't quite capture the images I was hoping for. This camera did automatic ISO adjustment. You can kind of see it getting noisier as it darken but not nearly the change in light that we actually experienced.
About 30-40 seconds before totality ends, we felt the winds pick up. You can hear that on the video too. It was a cool wind blowing in from the northeast, the direction the shadow was moving. During totality, we could feel the temperature drop. And as totality ended, we again saw the shadow bands.
I also wanted to capture the changing temperature and light levels throughout the day. I built a simple data collector using an Arduino board, and digital temperature sensor and a photoresistor. I'll write more about how I built that in a companion post. Again, I didn't do a great job calibrating the photoresistor so it was maxed out for most of the time but you can definitely see the sudden drop in light levels and the accompanying temperature drop.
Temperature (red) and light level (normalized, blue) during eclipse
We stayed out and watched the sun slowly come back over the next hour. It was almost like the previous hour but in reverse. Except there was less anticipation as we had already experienced the amazing changes of totality.
In some birding circles it is common to celebrate seeing a new species of bird with a slice of pie. We built on that idea and had celebratory eclipse brownies that evening.
Eclipse Brownie
We are looking forward to finding a way to see another one. And if you haven't experienced one, it truly is on a different level than a partial eclipse.
