The European Starling is often ignored, or worse, by North American birders, but if you can get past the fact that it’s aggressive, very good at living with humans, and has been in North America “only” since 1890, it’s a fascinating bird. As I looked up some other maps in the Canadian Atlas of Bird […]
Questions about Starling migration Read More »
Work is almost finished (really) on the Android version of the Sibley eGuide to Birds of North America, and we hope to have it available within days. In the meantime, I’ve been adding some new bird identification pages on this website: Vaux’s Swift Eastern Wood-Pewee Cave Swallow Bendire’s Thrasher Curve-billed Thrasher White-throated Sparrow
Android eGuide and other updates Read More »
In the Sibley Guide to Birds I illustrated Pacific and Atlantic/Gulf populations of Brown Pelican, showing different colors on the throat pouch (red on adult Pacific and olive on immature Pacific; always dark gray on Atlantic birds) and suggesting that these colors could identify the two populations. It turns out that Brown Pelicans in Texas
Red pouches on Brown Pelicans Read More »
A selection of my original art is now available for sale at this page. The pieces offered include gouache portraits of birds, many of which were printed in a weekly New York Times syndicated newspaper column from 2002 to 2005. Some were also printed in the book Bright Wings in 2009, as well as in
Original Sibley Art for Sale Read More »
For most observers the identification of these two species is simple, and is based entirely on location, with Vaux’s in the west and Chimney in the east. It is extremely rare to see the two species together, which means that few observers ever have the chance to study them in direct comparison, and therefore few
Identifying Chimney and Vaux’s Swifts by wing shape Read More »
If you’ve followed any of the discussions about identifying Red Crossbill call types, you may have given up on taking an active role in crossbill study, thinking that it would require thousands of dollars worth of recording equipment and computer software. Well, that is simply wrong. Most people can enter the field and start identifying crossbills
You too can record and identify Crossbill call types Read More »
I recently checked the bill length to bill depth ratios of Cackling and Canada Geese, expecting to find a consistent and useful difference. The bills of Cackling Geese are often described as “stubby” and I was always under the impression that they were short and relatively deep. Working with the measurements in Pyle (2008, Identification
Bill size, not shape, distinguishes Cackling and Canada Goose Read More »
In discussing the identification of the woodpecker in the Luneau video, my colleagues and I suggested that the extensive white visible in the wings could be accounted for, in part, by the natural twisting of the wings during flight. A bird flying away would show the underside of the wings during the entire downstroke. In the
Wing twisting explained Read More »
In my last post I mentioned that the juvenal plumage of type 4 and type 2 Red Crossbills seemed to be consistently different, and here are two photos that illustrate the differences.
Variation in juvenal plumage of Red Crossbill Read More »
Last month (late Aug 2010) I had the pleasure of spending some time at the Nature Conservancy’s Pine Butte Guest Ranch in Montana, where an irruption of Red Crossbills was in full swing. Each day around the ranch I saw and heard hundreds of crossbills, of two main call types, and these offered a great
Red Crossbill call types act like species Read More »