On November 27, a thin band of light illuminated the museum and dark, stormy clouds. The low fall sun illuminated the landscape around the museum. It was a beautiful and uplifting sight. Enjoy this photograph of the scene.
Category Archives: Photography
Nature in a Minute: Cedar Waxwings
As the leaves have dropped to the meadow and forest floor, the beautiful fall color has not migrated from the wildlife sanctuary, but has transformed with color radiating from the birds and fruit that are ever-present in the fall and winter. 
The bright red berries, from cherries, crabapples, and dogwoods, have been attracting hundreds of birds each day, including cedar waxwings. We have been fortunate to photograph large flocks of waxwings on the sanctuary.
We hope you enjoy these photographs of the Cedar Waxwings from the past two weeks.
Nature in a Minute: The Caterpillars Count!
We have a wonderful team of two volunteers and Sean Kent, the education and camp director, taking data on a weekly basis. So far we have monitored over 1,500 leaves for arthropods. Stay tuned!
Nature in a minute: Highlights from Bird-a-thon
Willet in a tree
On May 11 and 12, the Museum of American Bird Art had 16 members birding and raising money for Mass Audubon’s Bird-A-Thon, in which we observed 145 species! The MABA team has raised $2,350!, which is outstanding, but short of our $3,000 goal. All the money raised by MABA’s bird-a-thon team will go to supporting all the wonderful work we do at the museum, including exhibitions, summer camp scholarships, school programming and more. Please consider donating by clicking here.
Sunrise on Saturday morning of Bird-A-Thon
Enjoy a few of the species we saw over the 24 hour bird-a-thon.
Ovenbird in Easton
Red-breasted Merganser
Common yellowthroat contemplating a spider web
Field Sparrow
Prairie Warbler
Orchard Oriole in the setting sun
Yellow Warbler
Common Loon
Red-eyed Vireo
The splendor and solace of snow…nature in a minute
Although spring is right around the corner, winter is hanging on with three Nor’easters in the past two weeks. After all the shoveling and arduous cleanup (huge thanks to our property manager Owen Cunningham), we took an hour to snowshoe the wildlife sanctuary and enjoy the quiet and calm that always seems to follow a large storm. The trees were blanketed with a thick snow and everywhere you looked the wildlife sanctuary was painted white.
The meadow was blanketed with nearly two feet of snow and only one set of snow shoe tracks. 
The start of the main loop trail.
This trail leads to our vernal pool. In less than a month, as you walk up the hill you will be treated to an auditory sensation as a loud chorus of wood frogs welcomes spring. It is amazing how quickly nature turns in the spring. In two months, the pine forest floor will be covered with pink lady’s slippers that will be using the snow melt to thrive in May.
This is the spot that the wood ducks frolicked less than two weeks ago.
The vernal pool on our main loop trail.
Snow weighing down the saplings growing in our pine grove.
Who will use this cavity in spring? Maybe a chickadee or hairy woodpecker?
The pine grove. Deer recently walked by this scene.
A snow covered Pequit Brook.
Wood Ducks…Nature in a minute
As a flock of robins “swarmed” in the pine grove, bright red male cardinals sung from the tallest trees, and fairy shrimp emerged from the vernal pool, a flock six wood ducks flew into the maple, oak, and pine trees above our vernal pool on the morning of February 28. Nature can be so wonderful!
I was fortunate enough to have my camera with me and I was able to capture a few pictures and one short movie of these amazing creatures. Enjoy this brief glimpse into the hidden world of the wildlife in our sanctuary.
Watch and listen to the wood ducks chattering to one another high up in the trees.
The following are more photos of the wood ducks in the wildlife sanctuary.
Take Control of your Digital Photos: Adobe Lightroom Workshop with Shawn Carey
Do you have thousands of digital photos and are having trouble organizing them? Do you need help on how to process a digital photo for output to e-mail or web? The Museum of American Bird Art is thrilled to host a workshop with wildlife photographer Shawn Carey of Migration Productions for Adobe Lightroom workshop on Saturday October 14, 2017 from 9 to 4 pm. Click here to learn more or register.
In this all-day workshop, you will learn how to manage your digital photos and files in a way that makes sense, is easy to learn, plus learn many time saving shortcuts. This is an all day workshop that is broken up in three instructional units:
Section 1:
- Understanding Lightroom and how it works, organize your photos/files.
- Library Module
- Importing files, rating and editing or culling images.
- Proper backup of files and catalog
Section 2:
- Keywords and Keyword list, the proper way to apply Keywords
- Understanding collections and why there are useful.
Section 3:
- Develop a Module
- Develop and output for e-mail and web.
Shawn Carey’s Background
Shawn’s photos have been published in the Boston Globe, New York Times, Mass Audubon Sanctuary magazine, Science magazine, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary magazine and many others over the last 20 years. He has been presenting programs and teaching workshops for camera clubs, birding organizations and at birding events since 1994. (Mass Audubon, Maine Audubon, ABA, Manomet, HMANA, Eastern Mass Hawk Watch, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and many local bird and camera clubs). In 1997 he started teaching bird photography workshops (Fundamentals of Bird Photography) for the Mass Audubon and teaches for Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay’s Summer Field School on Cape Cod.
Shawn is a member of:
Mass. Audubon (Advisory Council)
Mass Audubon Museum of American Bird Art, Canton, MA (Advisory Board)
Eastern Mass Hawk Watch (Past President and current Vice President)
Nuttall Ornithological Club (Past Advisory Board)
Goldenrod Foundation (Advisory Board)
Brookline Bird Club (Past council member 7 years)
South Shore Bird Club
South Shore Camera Club
American Birding Assoc.
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
Shawn P. Carey
Migration Productions
cell # 617-799-9984
[email protected]
www.MigrationProductions.com