BirdingGirl

While on my recent walk at the Charles River I noticed lots of juvenile ducks that I initially assumed were Mallards, then thought were Blue-winged Teals, and finally realized were Juvenile Wood Ducks thanks to my friend Dave. Many of the ducks I saw were hanging out on overturned trees laying in the river, and this group was roosting in a tree right near the footbridge. There was a very large group of Canada Geese nearby since people were feeding them bread. This annoys me not only because I know it's not good for the birds, but also because it's frustrating if I'm running or walking because I need to navigate around the birds or avoid the path altogether if there's too many of them. According to a recent feature in the "Green Guru" column in the July/August issue of Audubon Magazine, feeding wild birds is harmful for the following reasons: White bread offers poor nutrition for the birds (refined sugar and processed fats are essentially "junk food"...

I decided to start investigating the issue since I'm still waiting to receive my first issue of the the Audubon Magazine and Audubon Society membership materials (I'm assuming a card and a sticker for my car). They deducted $20.00 from my card January 16th but I still haven't gotten anything in the mail. There is a disclaimer on the website that it may takes 4-6 weeks for the magazine to arrive, but I'm more interested in the membership itself. I'm sure I'll enjoy the magazine of course, but it would be nice to have access to members-only birding areas and other perks. I decided to do a Google search on "audubon membership" to see if I could start making sense of things. The first listing was for Audubon.org but the link was broken. The second listing was for the Massachusetts chapter, specifically the Benefits page. This helped clear things up tremendously. This membership was $44 by contrast and clearly stated the four primary benefits: Free admiss...