Category: Vertebrates

Posted on in Bird Profiles, Birding Trips, Birds

Is that a Northwestern Crow?

DumasBaySanctuary-WA_LAH_9606

I spent Thanksgiving week in the Pacific Northwest, visiting family (granddaughters!) and friends. Somehow, in the midst of tickles and snuggles, craft projects, and a delicious turkey dinner, I managed to squeeze in an hour of birding—and it wasn’t even raining.

Since we were in Federal Way for lunch that day, we headed for the tiny Dumas Bay Sanctuary. And I do mean tiny. If you walk north along the narrow beach, you quickly run into signs warning of private property. And if you head south instead, the park boundary markers stop you after only a few yards. At least the birds have permission to trespass, and we birders have binoculars.

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Posted on in Birds, Humor, Media Reviews, Nature

I’m Thankful For This…

Wild Turkey_CheyenneMtnZoo-CO_LAH_2224

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m sure you’re busy today, so today’s post will be short.

In honor of all the turkeys that will give their lives so we can celebrate God’s generosity, I’d like to share a cartoon I recently discovered. Not that it’s new. This website has been around a while now. But I didn’t know about it, and if it’s new to me, then it might also be new to you.

Please click on over to Bird and Moon and prepare to be delighted. I’m linking you to one of my favorite cartoons, but be sure to check out the rest of them, plus the store and everything else. Just don’t let dinner burn while you’re distracted!

Bird and Moon: Science and Nature Cartoons

(No, I wasn’t paid to promote this. I just think it’s awesome!)

Posted on in Birding Trips, Birds

Birding Niagara Falls

2017-08-29 14.54.40(If you’ve just tuned in, this is the fourth post in a series about our 2017 trip around the Great Lakes.)

By the time we left Grand Rapids, I had spent some enjoyable mornings birding Michigan while my husband, Pete, had attended a number of successful meetings. We had also visited two of the four states I had been missing, moving me that much closer to my goal of visiting all fifty. The trip was going well. And  now it was time for Pete to check off his own bucket list dream.

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Posted on in Birds, Conservation

Persecuting Cormorants

Double-crested Cormorant_PuebloCityPark-CO_LAH_6764

Early one morning a couple of weeks ago, some friends and I were birding around Kettle Lakes, a number of large ponds on U.S. Air Force Academy property. We exclaimed over the accuracy of a Belted Kingfisher’s dive to nab a fish for breakfast, in spite of the distortion caused by the air-water interface. A Great Blue Heron followed suit, coming up with a flapping fish in its beak.

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Posted on in Birds, Ornithology

For Birds, This Feature Comes Standard

Barred Owl_HomosassaSP-FL_LAH_7885How’d you like to be able to see with your eyes closed? Wouldn’t it be handy? You wouldn’t get grit in your eyes during a dust storm. Your eyes would never turn red from swimming in a pool with too much chlorine. And you’d never get poked in the eye. If only we could see through our eyelids!

It turns out that birds, and many other animals, can do just that. They share a body part that we humans lack—a fully functional third eyelid. Also called a nictitating membrane or haw, this thin sheet of tissue may be transparent, translucent, or (rarely) opaque. It slides between the cornea and the outer eyelids, offering protection from anything that might damage the eye, such as grit or drying winds.

In mammals, (but not birds) the membrane also includes a gland that produces a thin mucus, offering lubrication similar to tears.

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Posted on in Birding Trips

Birding Michigan, Part 2: Shiawassee NWR

ShiawasseeNWR-MI_LAH_4434

On the bank of the Shiawassee River, in central Michigan, Shiawassee NWR was touted as “a critical migration stopover site for waterfowl.” We were there on the last day of August, just over a year ago. With habitats ranging from marshes to forests to prairie, and a long list of bird species, some of which I’ve rarely (if ever) seen, I was hoping to see more than just waterfowl.

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