Q: Why didn’t the Turkey Vulture pay the airline’s luggage surcharge?
A: All he had was carrion.
Frequently portrayed as sinister black birds hunched over a dying cow or feasting on road kill, Turkey Vultures could be the perfect Halloween birds. But are they really as evil (or disgusting) as the image suggests? Get to know them a bit better, and you might be surprised at how interesting these huge birds can be. You might even find them endearing.
The tiny bird fluffs its feathers against the cold, while the north wind whips sleet into the pine branches surrounding its perch. With all water sources frozen, it has to use precious body warmth to melt the snow it eats. Last year’s crop of seeds is buried under a layer of white. Wild birds are amazingly hardy creatures, but even the sturdiest Mountain Chickadee (above) finds conditions like these a challenge.
There are a number of ways we can make our yards more hospitable to wintering birds. They need food, water, and shelter to survive. With increased urbanization, all three of these are becoming more scarce, so our efforts may make the difference in whether or not a bird survives until spring.
You have to see these photographs.
I am very aware that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of emails making the rounds, not to mention blogs and other websites, all with cute or unbelievable photographs in them. This is not one of those.
Well-known photographer Igor Siwanowicz is in a class by himself. If I can manage to create photographs half as incredible as his are, I will consider myself an unbridled success.
The above link takes you to just 60 of his close-ups of insects and other small creatures. Each one is a work of art. Please take the time to look. You’ll be so glad you did.
For the first time in recent memory a flock of Lewis’s Woodpeckers has taken up residence near Colorado Springs. Only 11 miles south of Colorado Springs, they are busy harvesting acorns in the picnic area at Fort Carson’s Turkey Creek Recreation Area. These uncommon (at least along the Front Range) woodpeckers are attracting every birder in town. A couple of friends and I made our migration at dawn two weeks ago, hauling binoculars, spotting scopes, and at least 50 pounds of camera gear. We weren’t disappointed.
This Friday, the Aiken Audubon Society and Bear Creek Nature Center will be airing “Ghost Bird.” If you live anywhere near Colorado Springs, Colorado, I highly urge you to come learn more about the elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker, believed to be extinct since the 1940s. Does it still exist? Here’s what the movie’s creators have to say:
Ghost Bird wades into a murky swamp of belief and obsession in this cautionary tale about birders, ornithologists and the citizens of Brinkley, Arkansas who are certain they keep seeing a giant woodpecker that’s been extinct for over half a century.
Birders in the U.S. are supposed to hate European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), and there are plenty of reasons to do so.
The species originated in Europe, North Africa, and western-to-central Asia. While mostly abundant there as well, the species has been red-listed in England after populations plummeted by more than 80% over the last 40 years [1]. Other northern European countries have witnessed a similar decline [2]. We can only wish that would happen here.
North American populations have exploded since their introduction in the early 1890s. According to the USDA, starlings cost our country $1.5 million in damage to agricultural crops, the consumption of feed intended for livestock, and in property damage. In one winter, a million starlings can down 27,500 tons of livestock feed, not to mention what is ruined by their accumulated droppings—and latest estimates put the US population at over 200 million birds.
Late August is one of my favorite times to go birding. Maybe that’s because I really like shorebirds. I grew up near the beach, and studied marine biology in college—and I still get excited about anything to do with the ocean. The shorebirds here in Colorado are nowhere near a coastline, but they’ll have to do, at least for now.
The calendar may still say summer, but shorebirds consider this time of year to be fall. They’ve finished nesting, and it’s time to head someplace where winters are warmer. Many species breed in the arctic, and Colorado is right on their route south.
“What is that huge, weird bug in the road? And what is it doing?”
We were hiking along a dirt track in Sinks Canyon, Wyoming (a totally gorgeous place, by the way), when we came across a large insect I didn’t recognize. I should have. A bit of research revealed that it was a Mormon Cricket (Anabrus simplex), and not only are they common, but at times they’re so abundant that their voracious appetites consume the landscape!
They do look sort of “cricket-y,” but Mormon crickets are actually shieldbacked katydids, also known as long-horned grasshoppers (family Tettigoniidae, subfamily Decticinae). They are found all over western North America, preferring sagebrush/grass rangeland similar to the place we found this one.
Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park, by Marie Winn
There are a number of books that tell stories about nature. They describe birds and their behavior in ways that are accurate, but sadly boring. The reader is left thinking, “I guess you had to have been there.”
This book is different. Author Marie Winn writes with a gentle charm, leaving the reader smiling and content, yet yearning for more.
Winn starts with a lengthy prologue that sets the scene. I admit that I’m not overly fond of New York City, and I’ve never been to Central Park. Yet, after reading this book, I find myself eager to go and see for myself. In particular, I’d like to explore that portion of the park known as the Ramble, where one may spot migrating warblers in the elms and oaks and feed the birds at the Azalea Pond.
If Spring brings courting birds, claiming territories and wooing mates with beautiful songs, July is the month of nestlings. Nature, in her efforts to reproduce herself, takes advantage of the abundance of food produced by a fruitful summer. A recent trip to the southwest parts of El Paso county (Colorado) confirmed that this has been a fruitful summer indeed. Everywhere we looked yielded an abundance of hungry nestlings and frenetic parents trying to keep up with the demand for food.
Our first stop, at Bear Creek county park, took us to a patient Broad-tailed Hummingbird, sitting dutifully on her nest. While the branch was over our heads—too high for a peek into the tiny cup-like nest—we guessed that the eggs hadn’t hatched yet. Perhaps this was a second attempt to reproduce, somewhat late in the season.
Mountain Plover 