I have given hundreds of talks about birds over the years in a great variety of venues. If I speak to the Boy Scouts or the local Master Gardener’s club, the talks are pretty straightforward as the attendees aren’t very experienced in birdwatching. The same with women’s social groups, retired teachers, senior citizen gatherings, and …
There are about 10,000 species of birds extant in the world today, but over 200 million years or so there were many more. Scientists estimate that there might have been 123,000 species of birds over evolutionary time. They evolved and then went extinct. Most of the extinctions we know about were due to human causes. …
Nearly every day I read something that makes me slap my forehead. I think: What will they think of next? How can people believe that? You have to be kidding me. But novel ideas are everywhere, and many of them are not true. To paraphrase Mark Twain, it ain’t what people don’t know, it’s what …
Ok, now I have heard it all. Fantasy birdwatching or Fantasy Birding. It’s a thing. I’m certainly behind that curve as I know nothing about fantasy football. Oh, I have a vague notion that one picks various football players from different teams and puts them together in some sort of all-star team. But that’s as …
Researchers have been tracking bird migration for many years but the biggest changes have come in the last fifty or so. According to the Science Daily, birds in Canada and Europe are moving northward a bit earlier each year. Birds that breed on the early end are hurrying up their passage while those that breed …
A few years ago I traveled to South Vietnam. One day, walking along a backcountry road looking for birds, which are fairly rare because the populace of rural villages eats pretty much any wild animal, a woman stooped over in front of me and snatched a big spider off the road for a quick snack. …
Ever wonder why your neighborhood has certain kinds of birds and your uncle, who lives across the country, has a different set of birds? And why aren’t there hundreds of kinds of birds in your backyard rather than just a few dozen? Well, it all comes down to succession – the development of communities. As …
Have you ever noticed that there are pairs of birds that look a lot alike but are different sizes? How about Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers? Or Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs. Long-billed and Short-billed Dowitchers. And Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned Hawks. These pairs are called “sibling species” and are presumed to have been one former species in …
There is a Northern Cardinal visiting a backyard feeder in Erie, Pennsylvania that looks like a male on its left side (red plumage) but resembles a female cardinal on its right side (gray plumage). The bird is called a gynandromorph– an organism that contains both male and female characteristics. The term gynandromorph, from Greek γυνή (gynē) female, …
Hummingbirds fight; that’s obvious to anyone who has watched them at a hummingbird feeder. And their bills are made for fighting as well as feeding. The bills are long and sharp and can be use to thrust, parry, and pluck the feathers of an opponent. They are also made for sucking up nectar. Fighting is …
