Birds

Hermit Thrushes (Catharus guttatus) are one of my favorite birds. Quite a bit of my research focuses on their migratory ecology, and it’s always nice to have a genuine fondness for your study subject. The other day at home I…

Late last year, I did a series of posts on the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler, with an emphasis on the pros and cons of using cowbird control as an open-ended management technique (posts in the series listed after the jump). One…

I know you are not supposed to click your own Google AdSense ads, but recently there were two ads for purveyors of bird’s nest soup, and I had to go see what that was all about. I knew that bird’s…

Saturday Cornell will be announcing the results of the winter 2005-2006 Ivory-billed Woodpecker search.

I am discouraged at the number of House Sparrows I see nesting in bird boxes in my neighborhood.

With the arrival of spring, I am again working on documenting breeding birds for our state breeding bird atlas. In my highly urban county, it seems reasonable that House Sparrow, European Starling, and Rock Pigeon are nesting in every quarter-township…

I’ve written before about Dark-eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis), a common little sparrow throughout much of North America. This species generally breeds at high latitudes (e.g., across Canada), or further south at higher altitudes (usually over 1500 feet/460 m). There it…

Recently, we have been being warned left, right, and center that avian influenza H5N1 was likely to enter the United States via migratory birds this year (or this spring, or next week, depending on the tenor of the article). I…

There are only two families of birds found just in the West Indies. One is the Dulidae, consisting of one species, the Palmchat (Dulus dominicus) of Hispanolia. The other is the Todidae, or todies, of which there are five species….