I can’t tell you how thrilled I am. Last night our daughter sent us the following text about two of our granddaughters, currently aged 4 and 6:
G: Look W–! A chickadee! (Gasp!) Two!
W: Yeah! Aww, they flew in the tree. (Runs to another window.)
W: I found them!
G: A chickadee! Two chickadees!
and so on…
I was adding some recent sightings to my life list when I got distracted reading down the list of the world’s bird species. There are so many—and some have pretty peculiar names! I started wondering how birds get their common names.
There’s always the old standby of choosing a name based on appearance. Red-headed Woodpeckers, bluebirds, and Black-throated Gray Warblers fall into this category, as do spoonbills, crossbills, and hornbills. Other names are based on location—you know where to look for the West Indian Whistling-Duck, Chilean Flamingo, or Galapagos Petrel. Some names are based on size, with plenty of “greater” this and “least” or “lesser” that.
Would you like your bedroom to be infested with spiders? I can’t count the nights I’ve spent wide awake in bed. staring at a suspicious black blob on the ceiling (I’m rather nearsighted without my glasses). Was it a spider? Should I turn on the light? It might move if I take my eyes off it to find my glasses. What if it is a spider? Is it going to fall on me in the middle of the night?
You can tell I don’t appreciate spiders in my bedroom. It’s a good thing, then, that I’m not a House Wren.
If you were stymied on Monday, now can you name this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado in June. The answer will appear at the end of next Monday’s post.
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado during the month of June. The answer will appear next week.
I don’t go to many birding festivals. They cost money and they attract crowds. I’m not a big fan of crowds. But I make an exception every year for the Pikes Peak Birding and Nature Festival, held right here in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado. In fact, not only do I go to the festival, I’m a volunteer.
What do the Ostrich, Kiwi, penguin, and Giant Coot have in common? Yes, they’re all birds—but none of them can fly. In fact, there are over 60 species of flightless birds, including all the Ratities (the family that includes the Ostrich, Rhea, Emu, and similar species) and all the penguins (in spite of the evidence in this video):
If you were stymied on Monday, now can you name this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado in May. The answer will appear at the end of next Monday’s post.
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado during the month of May. The answer will appear next week.
We may not live in the deepest, darkest jungle, but that doesn’t stop me from hunting tigers—tiger beetles, that is. Last year, I wrote about my first tiger beetle hunt. Earlier this month we repeated the adventure.
Mountain Plover 