Making Tracks With Ospreys Ospreys are the second most widespread raptor in the world — second only to Red-Tailed hawks. Colloquially known as the Fish Hawk, Osprey make their annual southbound journey each year starting as early as August. This fall, Ospreys have been counted again in the thousands migrating through some of the biggest migration […]
Where To See Migration Right Now! Fall is here and that means songbirds are on the move. Heading south for their annual fall migration, millions of songbirds follow ancient routes called migratory flyways. There are four flyways across the United States: the Atlantic, Central, Mississippi and Pacific. No matter where you are in the country, […]
Baby Birds of Summer Many species of birds have finished breeding and are starting south again. But some chicks are just hatching or are very young now. If you are talking a walk in the woods, now is a good time to be looking for baby turkeys, known as polts. Depending on where you are, wild […]
UPDATE On Piping Plovers and Moonbird It isn’t easy being a Piping plover. At a NJ beach where we follow the birds, there were 11 chicks hatched but just 2 that have fledged. Not a great success rate for an endangered species. A major factor is too much human disturbance, including dogs on the beach, […]
Defending the Kids Piping plovers are endangered and they like the same beaches we humans do…and at the same time. This can cause some tense and dangerous moments for both the parents and young chicks. I was recently at the beach watching a Piping plover family. The parents had to constantly maneuver their nearly uncontrollable […]
Birds that migrate long distances need your help! There are fun and easy things anyone can do and they can make a big difference to wildlife. If you like taking a stand for the right thing – animals like the Red knot and horseshoe crabs need you to stand up for them to keep them from […]
Hawks and eagles are top predators. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have challenges — most of which come from humans. From hitting power lines and being injured or killed in windfarms while hunting birds to being hit by cars, shot (often intentionally) and poisoned, raptors needs our help – even more than most other […]
Why do Peregrine falcons sitting on the beach seem so unnatural to me? Seeing them soaring over the city or swooping over flocks of shorebirds on migration is how I think of them. Their drives into flocks of shorebirds create changing elliptical masses of birds intent on confusing their attacker. The shapes the shorebird flocks […]
Another 1000 African Gray parrots were discovered earlier this month in crates about to leave the airport in Cameroon for transport to Bahrain and the Middle East. This is the second illegal shipment of these parrots intercepted in two months in Cameroon. The total number of birds discovered numbers over 1500 between the shipments – […]
Apparently there are no animals too small be bet upon in forced fighting rings. The latest bust, this one in Massachusetts, of illegal immigrants who keep finches in intolerable conditions, get them worked up , sharpen their beaks and then get them fighting, is a sad testimony to what goes on. Who would have thought […]
Right now the northern states are blanketed in snow, and stepping outside can be hazardous. Winter temperatures can dip below zero degrees Farenheit, and the wind chill pushes far below that. We can throw on layers or stay inside, but what do the birds do? How can we help birds brave the winter onslaught of […]
With the changing seasons our New York City backyard garden has different birds passing through, but among our constant companions are our cardinal family. This beautifully masked male cardinal is the epitome of grace and elegance. In the summer his gorgeous coloring is eclipsed by no other bird in our garden; in the fall, even […]
Hummingbirds have many challenges – they are tiny and yet need to be some of the toughest birds out there. They live in conditions where eeking out a living can be a challenge – especially when you have to feed at frequent intervals just to keep going. In the cloud forests of Peru, there is […]
Songbirds who migrate at night have long been thought to migrate north to breed then south again to molt and overwinter. That makes sense, right? But, the times they are a changing. Now researchers from the University of Washington have discovered that there are some birds who make a stop in Mexico on the way […]
According to a recent survey from the RSPB published on the BBC website, some of the more rare species of birds in the UK are seeing increases in their populations while some of the more common birds are seeing declines. The increased numbers of rarer species (including the Osprey and Avocet that are seen in […]
Nature configures itself in interesting ways that have meaning and speak to us where we are. So it was for Jarbas Agnelli, a Brazilian musician, who saw music in the pattern of birds on wires. Letting the visual pattern the birds made on the wires be the notes, the outcome of this one photo frame […]
The storms this week that brought rain and cooler weather also brought a lot of migratory birds into our city garden. Today was a busy day in the early afternoon for about an hour when one bird after another came to grab some food and a drink from our fountain. At one point the fountain […]
There’s a lot of stress in my garden. This is not a good sign for a garden, but it’s the birds who are causing it. It took me awhile to figure out what was happening, but after listening to a day’s worth of anxious chirping by a female cardinal, I looked to see if there […]
Are you one of those sensitive conservation-minded individuals who goes crazy when they see dogs off lead running through the woods? Feel self-righteous about keeping your dog on her lead and think you are a good conservationist for it? Well, think again. Just when you thought it was safe to walk your dog on a […]
I was having breakfast on our roofdeck this morning with my husband and we were enjoying a gorgeous summer day. Directly across from us on the next building there was a lot of commotion. A mockingbird was doing aerobatics flying at another bird on the roof. We got our binoculars to see what it was […]