During spring migration, warblers get lots of attention. Most are brightly colored and sing loud distinctive songs. Yellow warblers, for example, are common, beautiful, and easy to find. But other, less spectacular groups are equally interesting. Vireos, for example, are less brightly colored and usually more difficult to see. Often they are heard before they [...]
At about 7:15 Monday morning I settled into a comfy spot about 20 yards from the edge of the woods. My intent was to experience the migration, by sight and sound, from a single spot. It was chilly, about 42 degrees, but I was dressed for it — polar fleece jacket and wool cap. With [...]
Finally, spring has arrived. Forsythias, hyacinths and daffodils are blooming, lilacs are budding, and the grass soon needs mowing. And of course, spring migration is under way. And my email box is filled with notes from readers who love warmer days, blue skies, and sunshine. Let’s compare notes, and see how our observations compare. Typically [...]
When the Cabela’s store in Wheeling, W.Va. opened in 2004, it was billed as a “destination.” Give it a few months, I thought, and it will be just another outdoors store. I could not have been more wrong. Four million shoppers. According to Cabela’s retail marketing manager, Bud Forte, four million shoppers visited the Wheeling [...]
Their tiny size, acrobatic flying ability, and eagerness to use nectar feeders make hummingbirds one of America’s favorite backyard birds. This fascination always triggers a flurry of mail, so let me anticipate the most common hummer questions I will get over the next month. Q: How many species of hummingbirds live in the east? A: [...]
Vertebrate animals are those with backbones — fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. As a group, they are much less abundant than invertebrates such as insects, spiders, and mollusks. But there is one vertebrate that occurs in stunning numbers, often quite close to home. Among common vertebrate species, chipmunk population densities can range from 10 [...]
Thanks to cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, the rabbits we see in our backyards, eastern cottontails are familiar to almost everyone. And yet I suspect most people think they are rodents. They are not. Rabbits and hares are lagomorphs, members of the mammalian order Lagomorpha. The confusion is understandable. Both groups are herbivores, and [...]
According to statistics from the National Surveys of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, which are published every five years, the number of anglers in the U.S. is in a steady decline. Over the last 20 years the number of anglers has dropped from 35.6 million in 1991 to 33.1 million in 2011. Fishing trends Though [...]
Darleen Flaherty of Taylor, Mich., writes, “Several Michigan friends and I spotted robins in various locations in the lower half of Michigan’s lower peninsula in February. “We saw them when the temperature was in the 40s, but then our weather turned colder and snow returned. How do robin’s survive winter conditions? I’ve never seen a [...]
In his classic, A Sand County Almanac (1949), wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold described the male American woodcock’s courtship display as a “sky dance.” I call it my favorite harbinger of spring. A few nights ago, as I watched the February full moon rise in the east, a familiar sound caught my ear. “Peent!” A few [...]
