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 […]
Blog Tag: Birding
When Once Just Isn’t Enough
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 […]
OK in the UK
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 […]
Sounds of Nature
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 […]
Backyard Migration
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 […]
The Anxious Garden
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 […]
More Hope for New Species – New Songbird Species Found in Laos
As the old axiom goes “You learn something new every day.” Well, in parts of Asia, there may be the new axiom, “You discover something new every day.” Just a few days ago, researchers Woxvold and Duckworth discovered this unusual new songbird – the Bare-faced Bulbul – in a specific area of Laos. What’s particularly […]
Raptors on the Roof
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 […]
Peregrine Falcon Fledges in Boise
The first baby Peregrine falcon in the nest closely watched by the nestcam sponsored by The Peregrine Fund has fledged! Watch lift off and the rocky moments of his first flight here: Baby Peregrine Fledges Wildtones supports The Peregrine Fund
Time out in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula Rainforest
No matter what the season is, there is something special about the southwest peninsula of Costa Rica near Corcovado National Park. It’s a wonderful forested area by the water that has a rich diversity of bird and animal life. Lapa Rios (meaning River of Macaws), founded by American Karen Lewis before the term “green” […]
Lessons From A Birding Trip to a Barrier Island
I had the pleasure of visiting Little St. Simon’s Island again this year. A barrier island off the Georgia coast, even with a small lodge, it remains a wild place and offers great birding. Right now it is a wonderful place to hone shorebird identification skills. I find shorebirds daunting to identify and so I […]
Building Bird Nest Boxes
Spring is a time when lots of people turn their attention to creating nest boxes for breeding birds. Many birds use next boxes – from wrens to owls – and as we lose nesting habitat, nest boxes create an opportunity that might otherwise be lost for some birds to find a safe place to raise […]
It’s cold outside…do your birds have water?
Many parts of the country are experiencing seriously cold weather now. For wild birds that means a hardship trying to find water that they can drink as most of it is frozen over. In cold weather, wild birds can get dehydrated and that’s why you sometimes see birds in the street gutters trying to drink […]