Ornithology.com is a fairly popular website and ranks high on Google, so I receive regular emails from people who want to write articles for me. What they really want to do is pitch a product or service via a link in their article. Free advertising, so to speak. If it is bird-related, interesting and useful, …
The Common Swifts of Eurasia are similar to swallows in shape and behavior but are more closely related to hummingbirds than swallows. These aerodynamic birds are called “swifts” because of their fast and erratic flight. Because their feet are so week and small and they spend so much time in the air the ancient Greeks …
A few years ago I wrote the editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest about the use of bird names. Birds have official common English bird names, as designated by the International Ornithological Congress which has established the IOC World Bird List. Because there is only one official name for each bird, unlike any other group of …
I wrote this article before the recent events of unrest and it seems even more appropriate now. The New York Times had an article on May 26, 2020 about a woman who called the police to report a “African American” birdwatcher who had told her to leash her dog. She was quickly fired from her …
Earlier I told you about a scientist who made a collection of birds in Chicago that had met their demise by running into buildings. After forty years of collecting, he decided to measure the birds in the collection and found that they are getting smaller, apparently due to global warming. Bird skins are important for …
There’s a thing called Bergmann’s Rule. This is an ecogeographical rule that states that within a broadly distributed taxonomic group, populations and species of larger size are found in colder environments, and species of smaller size are found in warmer regions. This only applies to birds and mammals because they produce their own body heat. First, think of …
I’m spending a lot more time in my garden watching birds as the world has slowed down and I have less need to be out and about. While some have entertained themselves baking bread or working on crossword and jigsaw puzzles, lots of others have taken on birdwatching. Let me pass on some stories that …
A little musing today. I’ve been watching two bird feeders outside my kitchen window for the past several months, the seeds devoured by California Towhees and occasionally a Spotted one, Western Scrub Jays, Eurasian Collared Doves, and lots of White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows. In my backyard, near an intermittent creek, I built a bench next …
I received a question the other day from a fellow who lives in Ontario, Canada. He said that while walking around his town’s leafy downtown he noticed lots of birds but when he walks the nearby woods he doesn’t notice nearly as many. He wonders what’s going on. The key to his question is “leafy …
Over the years I have received a lot of emails with questions about birds. Most are straightforward, concerning identification or behavior. But occasionally I receive an exceptionally weird one. Probably the strangest question I have ever received was from a woman who said that in her home country (not the U.S.), birds would follow her. …
