Introduction
Back in 2013, my right-hand man in all things Osprey, Dick Jennings, and I were at an Osprey nest on Chappaquiddick Island waiting for a young Osprey to return to his nest. Our mission was to trap the recently fledged bird and outfit it with a satellite transmitter. Shortly after we set up, the youngster flew out of sight, off to explore the world around him. In the three hours it took him to return, we passed the time talking mostly about Ospreys.
Bill Brine, a neighbor who had come over to watch the trapping process, asked me who my favorite Osprey was. I told him it was Belle, a young bird we tagged in 2010 at Lake Tashmoo. Belle was one of the first of our young Ospreys to fly across the Atlantic from Martha's Vineyard to the Bahamas, a non-stop trip of nearly 1,200 miles, and had just that spring returned for the second time from her winter retreat in southern Brazil.
Bill suggested I write a children's book about Belle's adventures modeled after the famous Paddle-to-the-Sea by Holling Clancy Holling. Shortly after I got back home to Philadelphia, a copy of Paddle-to-the-Sea arrived in the mail thanks to Bill, and the seed he had planted in my imagination sprouted and began to grow.
A few months later I had finished the first draft of my book. Nearly five years later, Belle's Journey appeared in bookstores.
Awards
Belle's Journey received one of two Honorable Mentions in the 2018 National Outdoor Book Awards' Children's Division, been placed on the National Science Teachers' Association list of outstanding trade books for 2019, was the Bank Street Colllege of Education's Children's Book Committee's Pick of the Month for November 2018, and was listed in the University of Wisconsin's Cooperative Children's Book Center's Choices 2019.
Reviews
Bank Street College of Education - (By Maize Klevan, age 9!): I rate this book 10¾. It is good for ages 8 and up, and younger if read by an adult. I liked this book so much that I asked my father to buy it for me. I brought it to school to show to my friends and recommend to them. Belle is an Osprey. You get to meet her as she goes through her first migration, has many encounters along the way, and finds a mate at the end. She starts at Martha’s Vineyard, makes a bee line through Columbia to Rio Madeira. On the way back she rests at Yanomani Village, and at Lake Maracaiba, then flies over the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba where she almost gets shot at a fish farm. She then returns to the Gulf to rest a bit, but flies off quickly to avoid a Peregrine Falcon, going to Florida where she is almost eaten by an alligator. She then returns north to the Chesapeake Bay and Martha’s Vineyard. There she meets her mate and they live together on Cape Cod. I loved everything about this book. I love wild life, especially birds, and especially Osprey!! as it turns out. What drew me immediately to this book was the Table of Contents which listed exiting headings like ‘Captured!,’ ‘Over the Mountain,’ and ‘A Meal Lost.’ There are detailed pictures at the beginnings of the chapters which also grabbed my attention.
Kirkus Reviews - A young osprey named Belle completes her first 4,000-mile solo migration from Massachusetts to South America and back. One spring, Dr. B., a scientist on Martha's Vineyard who studies ospreys, selects Belle, a large, young female, to be equipped with a satellite transmitter dispatching messages tracking her movements every three days. By September, Belle has become an expert fish catcher and a strong flier, and she is poised for her migration south. Launching from Martha's Vineyard, Belle flies nonstop for two days over the open Atlantic before resting on a cargo ship. Resuming her journey, Belle traverses a Bahamian island, Cuba, and the Caribbean Sea. A hurricane blows her into Colombia, and she eventually arrives in Brazil. A year and a half later, Belle returns to Martha's Vineyard, taking an inland route to begin the next phase of her life. In this "mostly true story," Bierregaard (the real Dr. B.) uses the real-life Belle, whose migration he tracked, to convey this lively, personalized look at migrating ospreys. Rendered in watercolor pencil, ink, and aqua crayon, the realistic, atmospheric illustrations rely on line and color to capture the drama of Belle's amazing adventure. An engaging, informative introduction to ospreys for budding birders.
School Library Journal - Written in an easy-to-follow and authoritative style, this narrative nonfiction tale recounts the story of a young osprey from her early days in Martha’s Vineyard, MA, to her first migration to South America and back. Bierregaard, who has studied the birds for more than 40 years, explains that this is mostly a true story, but that he has imagined some of the details. He caught Belle as a young chick and fastened a radio transmitter to her (worn like a backpack), which sends an account of Belle’s travels to the scientist every three days. He knows where she’s been, how long it took her to reach certain places, and the weather she encounters along the way. Belle’s flight is an instinctual one, readers are told, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. She travels many miles each day, survives a hurricane, visits the Japurá river in Brazil, and avoids threats from humans and other animals. Students will be easily caught up in Belle’s story, especially when she encounters dangers for the first time in her young life. Garchinsky’s illustrations—done in watercolor pencil, ink, and aqua crayons—are not only lovely to look at but match the book’s lively tone. There are also two photographs of the real-life Belle included at the end. VERDICT: A page-turner for animal lovers, this book is a good choice for libraries in need of engrossing nonfiction.
CCBC - Choices 2019 - Rob Bierregaard, or "Dr. B.," has been studying Ospreys since 1971. One summer on Martha's Vineyard, he and his partner attach a tiny satellite to a fledgling they name Belle. They observe and monitor Belle as she learns to fly and catch fish. When she leaves on her first migratory journey at the end of the summer, they have only the transmitter to follow Belle, who flies stright over the Atlantic, getting caught in a hurricane before heading south. She stays for 1.5 years in South America before heading home, up through Florida and aong the coast. Although Bierregaard had no way of knowing many of the specifics of Belle's experiences, he's used informed conjecture based on his knowledge of Ospreys to create an engaging, highly dramatic narrative grounded in fact. The inclusion of two children, George and Ella, who met Dr. B the summer he tagged Belle and follow her journey online through the satellite transmissions, sometimes emailing him questions when they're worried, adds another wonderful element to this informational book featruring occcasional full-page and spot illusrations.
"Real Belle" and "Story Belle"
The journey that the Osprey in our story, "Story Belle," makes is actually a composite of the first migration of four different young Ospreys that Dick and I tagged on Martha's Vineyard. That said, everything that happens in the book really happened to one of our birds. Most of the story follows "Real Belle's" first migration cycle. This mug shot is Real Belle when we trapped him (as it turned out) in July of 2010. I have imagined some of the details in the story, such as Belle's close calls at the indian village and with the black caimain, but I know these sorts of things happen. I did witness a scene with an Osprey, a Great-blue Heron, and an alligator, which happened exactly as I describe the episode in the book, although in that event, the gator wound up eating the Osprey as well as the fish! Had I been completely true to what I had seen, our book would have ended, rather sadly, right there. Most of the trip itself is just what Belle did. Real Belle was one of the first of our young birds to go out over the Atlantic. He did not land on a ship, but at least a half dozen other Ospreys did. It was Thatcher, a young male from Delaware, who rode out the hurricane between Hispaniola and South America, and Conomo, a Vineyard young from Lobsterville, was one of three young who, while crossing Cuba on their first trip north, missed the turn to get to Florida and wound up crossing the whole Gulf of Mexico.
So, what has happened to Real Belle in the years since we tagged him? Belle's radio finally gave up after 6 years and 9 months of transmitting. This is longer than any other Osprey tagged on this side of the Atlantic. In Europe, there has only been one bird that carried a transmitter longer than Belle. Beatrice was trapped by Roy Dennis in Scotland. She was an adult when tagged and was followed for 7 years and 8 months. Real Belle transmitted data much longer than any other juvenile anywhere. Usually we hate it when a radio fails, but this is one time when it's not so bad. We learned so much from Belle, we can't regret losing his signal. Most of the time, when we lose the signal from a bird, I assume it has died. In this case, we could see Belle's radio begin to fail, sending fewer and fewer GPS locations as he headed north that spring, so we know he's out there. In an ideal world, this spring we would have found Belle on a nest and trapped him to remove her transmitter. But, in this real world that didn't happen.
We haven't given up completely--someone may still spot him on a nest somewhere on the Cape or Islands. If that happens, we'll have a chance to retrieve the radio and tell him, "Thanks for all the stories!"
Belle by the numbers:
Tagged 28 July 2010 - last signal 26 April 2017
GPS locations: 29,523
Total distance traveled: 82,961 miles (more than three times around the globe!)
Total migration distance: 50,000+ miles
Migrations completed: 6
Books inspired: 1
Safe travels, Belle!
Illustrator Kate Garchinsky
Once I had finished the first draft of Belle's Journey, I had no idea what to do next. A Google search for "publishing a children's book" resulted in 2,500,000 hits. Needless to say, that didn't help a whole lot. So I was exploring the option of using a custom publisher--one (big) step up from vanity publishing, but still a long way from where I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to find my way to a real publishing house, but had no leads. I also was missing a key piece of the puzzle--an artist to illustrate the book. A good friend in the Philly area knew that I had written a book, and he knew a guy who knew a gal.... The first 'guy' was Joel Greenberg, who had recently published a book on Passenger Pigeons. The 'gal' was Kate Garchinsky, a talented artist who had done some lovely illustrations for Joel. My friend introduced me to Kate, who read the then current draft of the story and jumped on board. She was finishing up the illustrations for Laurence Pringle's book, The Secret Life of the Red Fox, and was ready for her next project.
And, as luck would have it, Kate knew another guy who was the last piece in our puzzle. Harold Underdown wrote the Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books and runs workshops and webinars for authors and artists aspiring to break into the 'kidlit' publishing world. Kate had participated in a couple of Harold's workshops so she knew he would be able to offer important insights and direction. She shared Belle's Journey with Harold, who saw enough promise in the book to take us under his knowing wing and guide us through the process of putting together a proposal that we could shop around to potential publishing houses. We started with Charlesbridge Publishing, where he used to work, and needed to go no further.
Visit Kate's website PenguinArt.com to see more of her art and other book projects.
Purchasing Belle's Journey
We hope you will try your local bricks-and-mortar bookshop first. They should be able to order a copy for you, and your interest may inspire them to carry the book on their shelves, if they're not already. Alternatively, Belle's Journey can be ordered through Indiebound.org (preferably) or Amazon.com. Alternatively, eMail me to order autographed copies.
Charlesbridge Publishing
Visit Charlesbridge's page devoted to Belle's Journey to hear interviews that I've done about the book and my research on Ospreys up in Newfoundland and browse their catalog of other children's books.
Outreach - Data access and lesson plans
My colleague in Osprey tagging in New Hampshire, Iain MacLeod, has developed a series of lesson plans for students of all ages. Some of the plans are modified from a set devised by our Osprey colleagues over in the United Kingdom as part of their World Osprey Week program, which unites schools along Osprey migratory routes from Europe to Africa and between North and South America. Visit the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center's website for these plans.
For teachers, all the raw data from Belle and all the other Ospreys we have tagged are available from the Movebank.org database. These data can be downloaded in Excel spreadsheet or Google Earth format and used in all sorts of class projects. I have already created Google Earth files for each bird's migration (this is pretty easy to get from Movebank) and the nightly roosts for each bird's trip. The roost file really helps when studying what goes on during migration. I will gladly share these files with anyone to use in their classes. Contact me for details.
Book signings and classroom visits
eMail me to schedule a book reading or school visit.
May 19th - Big Blue Marble Bookstore Kidlit Festival, Mt. Airy, PA.
May 20th - Willistown Conservation Trust Nature Keepers youth program, Media, PA
May 29th - Oak Bluffs School 5th grade.
May 29th - Bunch of Grapes Bookstore, Vineyard Haven, MA
May 30th - Dennison Pequotsepos Nature Center and Bank St. Books, Mystic, CT
July 13th - 1 PM, Sherman's Maine Coast Bookstore, Damariscotta, ME
July 14th - 7 PM, Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, Holderness, NH
July 23rd - 10 AM-12 PM, Earth Conservation Corp, Anacostia River, Washington, DC - With Kate Garchinsky
July 27th - 10:30 AM, Meig's Point Nature Center, Hammonasset Beach State Park, Madison, CT
July 30th - 7 PM, Edgartown Public Library - With Kate Garchinsky
Aug 2nd - Tours of East Beach, Chappaquiddick, followed by a presentation at the Chappaquiddick Community Center at 6:30PM - With Kate Garchinsky
Aug 3rd - 12:45, Fern and Feather Nature Camp, Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, Edgartown, MA
Aug 3rd - 4 PM, West Tisbury Library - With Kate Garchinsky
Aug 7th - 2 PM, Edgartown Books, Edgartown, MA
Aug 7th - 7 PM, Vineyard Haven Library
Aug 8th - 6 PM Greenbelt, Essex, MA (Free but RSVP requested)
Aug 11th - Cape Henlopen State Park, Cape Henlopen, DE
Sept 22nd - 10AM, Irvine Nature Center, Owings Mill, MD
Sept 29th - Park Road Books, Charlotte, NC
Sept 30th - Carolina Raptor Center, Charlotte, NC
Oct 2nd - Trinity School 5th graders
Oct 4th - Mecklenburg Audubon Society, Charlotte, NC
Oct 13th - Hawk Migration Association of North America annual conference, Detroit, MI
Oct 25th - 12-3PM, Local schools 5th graders, 5 PM, Roger Tory Peterson Estuary Center, Old Lyme, CT
Nov 30th - Merion Golf Club, Ardmore, PA
Dec 9th - 2-5 PM, Open House at John James Audubon Center, Mill Grove, PA.