Woodpeckers are successful creatures, well known to everyone. Perhaps the most famous woodpecker besides Woody, the cartoon woodpecker, is the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, very likely extinct since 1948, the last verified sighting of it. There are many kinds of woodpeckers in the world. Propped against the side of a tree trunk, they rapidly hammer against the bark. Why …
A number of people write to me asking about the field of ornithology, from young grade-schoolers to retired businesspeople. Their interest in birds leads them to think they want to pursue the field of ornithology in some way. So let’s talk about that. What do ornithologists do? Well, an ornithologist studies birds, but there is …
A well known blackbird is the Brewer’s Blackbird. This common blackbird gets its name from a prominent 19th Century Boston naturalist who started his professional career as an M.D. with a degree from Harvard and later developed a passion for birds. As a teenager he began sharing his field observations with J.J. Audubon. Audubon …
Wondering what to do in the winter? Build a birdhouse or two. With the disappearance of orchards and other trees and the replacement of old wooden fence posts with fiberglass ones, there are fewer sites suitable for birds to build a nest in. There is one thing we home dwellers can do: provide habitat. Landscaping …
Glass has been around for nearly 3000 years, but it’s only been a bit over 100 years since the invention of sheet glass, making mass production of windows possible. Birds and windows have been in conflict ever since, if not before. Every year at this time I get lots of questions on my website, ornitholo.wpenginepowered.com …
My wife and I ended a three week cruise of the west coast of Africa by visiting one of the Canary Islands, a Spanish protectorate, west of Morocco. The Canary Islands are a semi-tropical vacation haven for residents of Europe, comparable to Hawaii for U.S. residents. Like many island nations, it has birds similar to those …
After seeing so many wonderful birds in the wilds around the world I wonder about those kept in cages, Birds have been raised in captivity for many years for pleasure or profit. (For today’s discussion, I’m excluding birds like chickens raised for food.) I have met folks from Bird Clubs and have spoken at their meetings. They …
I just spent a week on Christmas Island in the country of Kiribati, 1200 miles southwest of Hawaii. This is my second visit to this volcanic coral reef for a fishing trip, and of course watching birds. It has been 15 years since my last visit and although not much has changed, one thing definitely …
