Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado during the month of July. The answer will appear next week.
Category: Vertebrates
Weird Spruce Growths
“My spruce tree has brown things all over it! Is it sick?” The caller was quite anxious. He had a beautiful Colorado Blue Spruce growing in his yard, and now it had some sort of weird alien growths at the ends of all the branches. Was it going to die?
Over the years that I volunteered at the master gardener help desk, we would often get calls like this. No, the caller’s tree wasn’t sick, not exactly. Those prickly, cucumber-shaped growths that show up on spruces from time to time are actually galls caused by an insect. They might look peculiar, but they weren’t going to cause significant harm to his spruce.
“Bird Brain” is a Compliment!
Crows can make tools, or unzip your backpack to extract your lunch. Macaws have been known to open complicated latches their cages in order to escape their captors, demonstrating insight into complex problem solving. Jays can remember where they stashed each and every one of thousands of nuts. And I knew an African Gray Parrot that, in an effort to keep its owners home (and therefore receive more attention), mimicked the telephone’s ring every time anyone started to leave the house. In fact, many birds are exceptionally intelligent. But how do they fit those smarts into their tiny brains?
June Quiz: Answer
To refresh your memory, here is the photo from June’s Bird Quiz. The bird was seen in New Mexico during the month of June. Don’t read any further if you want one last chance to identify this bird.
June Bird Quiz
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in New Mexico during the month of June. The answer will appear next week.
Birding Carrizo & Cottonwood Canyons
(Last week I promised a post on my final CFO fieldtrip. Here you go…)
After several days of desiccating wind and heat, Sunday dawned with welcome relief in the form of much cooler temperatures and a light breeze. My trip was to the Comanche National Grasslands. I’d driven through the area years before and hadn’t been impressed. Apparently, that was because I didn’t know where to go. Oh my. I can’t wait to get back!
CFO for Mother’s Day!
Some moms receive roses for Mother’s Day. Others are given chocolates, dinners out, or photos of their adoring children. While I did enjoy dinner in a restaurant on Mother’s Day, I wasn’t dining with my family. Rather, I spent the day—actually five days over a long weekend—attending the annual Colorado Field Ornithologists (CFO) convention, held this year in Lamar (almost to Kansas and Oklahoma), Colorado.
My family knows what makes me smile.
Except…
We’re familiar with these facts:
Brown Pelicans are saltwater birds, sticking to the coasts.- It’s only the male bird that sings.
- Birds that migrate fly north in the spring and south in the fall.
- Great Blue Herons eat aquatic insects, crustaceans, amphibians (such as frogs) and fish.
- Males have the ornate feathers, while females tend to be drab and camouflaged.
We think we know. We think we understand. We’ve observed, conducted studies, collected facts. We think we have it right. And then Mother Nature confounds us.
May Quiz: Answer
To refresh your memory, here is the photo from May’s Bird Quiz. The bird was seen in California during the month of April. Don’t read any further if you want one last chance to identify this bird.
May Bird Quiz
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in California during the month of April. The answer will appear next week.
Mountain Plover 