birding
-
Downy
A Downy woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) working the bark for delicious invertebrate prey. The stiff tail feathers of a woodpecker help her (this is a female, lacking the red patch on the back of the head, trust me on this) balance on the vertical. Her feet have a zygodactyl pattern, two toes forward, two back, also…
-
-
Extreme Birding
Extreme in the sense of the abilities of my camera, that is. These birds were all seen on the piers or de facto bays between the piers at Brooklyn Bridge Park.A comparison of the size difference between Ring-billed gulls (Larus delawarensis) on the left and a Herring gull (Larus argentatus) on the right.A Red-throated Loon…
-
Preen on
Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) preening. Feather maintenance is of course vitally important to birds. One of the things they have to worry about is feather lice, which, without regular bathing and preening, could become a problem. Interestingly, feather lice species have evolved over time to associate only with “their” species of birds. There is an analogy…
-
The Case of the Headless Mouse
It was as cold as a Titmouse on a bare oak branch that morning. The call came in from the Mammal Division. I’d fallen asleep in my suit, Kirkegaard propped against my noise. My tongue felt like it had been ground up for dog-food and probably smelled like that, too, but I shook off my…
-
Spectacular ducks
Hooded mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus), female above, male below. The male’s wild crest is lowered in this shot, the female’s cinnamon-colored one mostly upright. These birds were in Central Park’s Jackie O Reservoir, where I understand they like to hunt for crayfish. Mergansers — there are two other species in our parts — have serrated bills,…
-
Counting Crows and Others
Today’s the start of the annual Christmas Bird Count. This tradition started 113 years ago as a protest against the then popular Christmas Hunts, in which pretty much everything that flew was targeted to be blown out of the sky. A change for the better, I think. The counts go on for the next few…
-
Red Robins
Not all of our American Robins live up to their species name, Turdus migratorius. They will stick around through the winter as long as there is available food and water. Nearly a dozen were scouring berries from this tree the other day. They’ll eat hawthorne, dogwood, chokecherries, and sumac berries, among others, and are said…
-
Evening Grosbeak
A female Evening Grosbeak (Coccothraustes vespertinus) making a rare appearance in Prospect Park. It has been around for a few days. This was this morning at 10:30. The last recorded sighting of this species was a dozen years ago, and before that, 1989. On the right is another member of the finch family, a Pine…
-
Dunlin
My, what long bills you have. Dunlin, Calidris alpina, a species of sandpiper. A winter visitor in our region; these were walking just a few feet away from us on Hummock Pond a week ago. Their breeding plumage, as in so many other birds, is more colorful: rufus backs and black bellies. They breed along…
Backyard and Beyond 