birding
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Barely Glimpsed Birds
This is a natural history blog, not a photographic one. I try to use my best pictures for illustrative purposes, but my PowerShot SX50 definitely isn’t a SLR with a long lens. Sometimes I get a fine shot. Often not. You’ll notice few in-flight images here, for instance. And sometimes I get shots for reference’s…
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Swallows and Swifts
Dr. Johnson, in his 59th year, 1768 (per wee Jaimie Boswell): “He seemed pleased to talk of natural philosophy. ‘That woodcocks, (said he,) fly over the northern countries, is proved, because they have been observed at sea. Swallows certainly sleep all the winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, then…
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Raptor Wednesday
A pair of Bald Eagles immediately after mating.We heard them before we saw them.Haliaeetus leucocephalus make some very un-eagle-like sounds. (That’s because they are usually dubbed over with the calls of Red-tailed Hawks in the professional bullshit business of entertainment.) The sound that alerted us to their presence is described on the Cornell sound page…
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Audubon II
There is darn little art without political economy. Welcome back to another way of looking at John James Audubon. In his book, Audubon’s Elephant, detailing the difficulties of getting the double elephant edition of Birds of America published in Britain, Duff Hart-Davis says Audubon’s portfolio weighed a hundred pounds. Hart-Davis doesn’t inform us that when Audubon referred to…
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Turning Tern
Do you have as much difficulty with terns as I do?This is a Forster’s (Sterna forsteri) in (mostly) non-breeding plumage. A good field mark is that dark mask and pale nape. Also most helpful: not moving for a good long view. * The Anatomy of Liberal Melancholy is food for thought, as is this appreciation…
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Happy Birthday, John J.
It’s Audubon’s 232nd today. Backyard and Beyond will be noting this in several ways over the next couple of days. Some of you may be surprised to learn that John James Audubon retired to Manhattan. In 1841, upper New York County was still pretty wild, as the city more or less ended at 14th Street. Wishing…
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Cough!
A pellet of pieces of shell and pebbles. Found on a pier on the Piankatank, along with some other samples that had been smushed and otherwise disassembled. Diameter of a quarter and quite round. Who do you suppose chucked it up? Grebes, Kingfishers, Loons, Osprey out there: but they’re all fish-eaters.
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Double-crested
Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus): in case you were wondering what the double-crests are. Breeding plumage.As fine an example as any of how optical enhancement can reveal the astonishing beauty of birds. Those eyes! For anyone sliding into complacency, a perusal of Trump’s latest incoherence transcript will do the trick.
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Owlets
Great Horned Owls (Bubo virginianus).GHO are said to have the greatest diversity of prey of any raptor, diurnal or nocturnal. Mammals, mostly, but also birds, including other raptors. They will also eat insects, reptiles, fish, and carrion. And you know these Muppets are ravenous. By the way, is that down on their eyelids? Meanwhile, in…
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Naturalist Notes
Viola canadensis, a native violet.It was cool, so this Robin (Turdus migratorius) was hunkered down on those blue blue eggs.A Red Velvet Mite of the family Trombidiidae. Predators of the leaf-litter zone, as large as a blood-gorged tick and, being mite-y, rather looking like one.So many vocal White-Throated Sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis) in the Ramble!And a…
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