The artwork shown here is available for sale, click here to view current auctions Birds are busy this time of year, trying to raise a family (or two or three) and then get ready for fall migration, and it all goes so fast. The young birds are full-grown just a few weeks after they hatch, […]
‘Tis the season for baby birds Read More »
On my usual birding circuit on the morning of 26 May 2015, along the Assabet River in Concord, MA, I heard the distinctive song of a Mourning Warbler. This species is a rare but regular migrant through the area, so finding one is a highlight any day, and I set to work to try to
An interesting warbler Read More »
No matter how serious you are about birding, or how much you want to see hawks, a Mourning Dove will always have a stronger interest in spotting them. Birds that are in mortal danger of hawk attacks have excellent eyesight and are constantly alert to any potential threat. It’s a safe bet that they will spot
Finding hawks by watching doves Read More »
Download a free one-page guide to American Woodcock display The flight display of the male American Woodcock has to be one of the most remarkable avian performances in the world. And yet, despite the fact that countless ornithologists and birders have marveled at this spring spectacle, some very basic questions are still unanswered, including this
The mysterious sounds of the American Woodcock Read More »
The Eastern and Western subspecies of Willet are often mentioned as likely candidates for splitting into two species. They differ in size, proportions, details of plumage, migration pattern, and have no overlap in breeding range and very little in winter range. There is a lot of good information in print about how to identify them
Comparing the songs of Willet subspecies Read More »
The painting shown here was recently sold at auction Birds in the family Caprimulgidae, which includes Eastern Whip-poor-will (shown here), have been referred to as “goatsuckers” based on a superstition that goes back well over 2000 years. They all have tiny beaks that open to reveal an impressively large mouth used to catch flying insects, and
Why are they called goatsuckers? Read More »
This is the time of year when Red-winged Blackbirds are returning to marshes all over the continent, and the males are performing their showy displays to impress females and intimidate rivals. You might think the display simply involves fluffing up the body feathers and especially the red patches on the wings, but there is a
Red-winged Blackbirds showing off Read More »
Lots of birds have a habit of pumping (or wagging) their tails. It’s mostly open-country birds like phoebes, wagtails and pipits, Palm Warbler, Spotted Sandpiper, and others. Many hypotheses have been suggested to explain why the birds do it, but nobody came up with an answer until Gregory Avellis in 2011. He studied Black Phoebes
Why do phoebes pump their tails? Read More »
Cackling Goose is a rare fall migrant through Massachusetts and I usually see a couple of them each fall among the hundreds of Canada Geese around Concord. I look forward to the challenge of sorting through the flocks and picking these birds out, and once a candidate is located the identification has usually been straightforward –
Cackling-ish Geese Read More »
The most significant change for North American birders in the 2013 AOU Checklist supplement is the split of Sage Sparrow into two species: Sagebrush Sparrow and Bell’s Sparrow. In this arrangement Bell’s Sparrow includes the distinctively dark coastal California subspecies belli, as well as the much less distinctive interior California subspecies canescens. Sagebrush Sparrow is
Peter Pyle on Sage Sparrows Read More »