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Earlier this summer, I traveled to Helsinki, Finland, to teach a course for the University of Denver on nature writing. The timing couldn't have been better. With my book in the hands of the publisher, there was nothing to do for the Whip-poor-wills but wait. And so the week-and-a-half long course and endless summer sun in Helsinki offered ample time to dodge aggressive urban gulls, photograph mosses and lichens, and teach a birding-based writing course.
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Since returning, I've spent my time looking for hummingbird nests. I'm fascinated by the creativity and intricacy of these constructions. I've seen photographs of Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, which are common in Colorado, nesting on outdoor lights, hooks, outdoor decor, among other things. They also camouflage nests by decorating them with bits and pieces of lichens, plant matter, even scraps of paper. Here's a photograph of one local nest that I've found. I took the photos the day after a rare rain here in Colorado, so the lichens looks especially colorful.
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This female Broad-tailed Hummingbird briefly refurbished and reused this nest, which was left over from last year's efforts. Unfortunately, the nest sits over a sidewalk near a busy-ish road. After sitting on the nest for a few days, the hummingbird appears to have given it up.
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Book Updates
In August, I expect to receive my copy-edited manuscript from the publisher. I'll have a few weeks...maybe a month...to review the copy edits, add my own, and make any final changes. It's both a small and big step toward publication. Small, because the book is already written and I can only make minor changes and corrections at this point. Big, because it's the last real writerly moment for me.
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From there, I suspect it will be about 12-13 months until a likely August / September 2027 publication of the book. Just in time for fall migration and the last nightjar sighting of the year.
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Other than that, I'm in the very early stages of planning a few essays to publish alongside the book. (More on that when the time is right!)
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Recently...
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Where the Flycatchers Are - Denver Field Ornithologists
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Over the past decade, two flycatcher species have decided that the trails near my home make good nesting grounds. Read about the arrival of Western Flycatchers and Eastern Phoebes(!) to Denver's south suburbs in my most recent essay for DFO's The Lark Bunting.
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Around the birding world...
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& looking ahead
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This September, I'll teach a two session course on hummingbirds for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Denver. The first session is a classroom based session covering Colorado's four species of migratory hummingbirds. The second is a trip to the Denver Audubon Kingery Nature Center at Chatfield State Park. More information can be found here.
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"To sleep where you may hear the whip-poor-will in your dreams!"
- Henry David Thoreau, 1851
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lonesomewhippoorwill.com
jared@lonesomewhippoorwill.com
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