About a week ago while sitting on the back porch watching night fall, I saw the first golden flash of summer. Soon a dozen fireflies, or lightning bugs as they are often called, patrolled the backyard. Another handful flashed from perches in the tall grass on the edge of the yard.
Flashing fireflies mean summer […]
Of all the birds that sing their own name, the eastern wood-pewee does it best. Every morning as I lie in bed just before dawn, I hear the usual spring chorus dominated by robins, cardinals and Carolina wrens.
In the background, from deeper in the woods, comes the pewee’s plaintive, two-part song — “pee-a-weee,” followed […]
Finding an ovenbird nest is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Unless you follow this drably colored warbler to its domed, oven-like nest on the ground, you’ve got to be lucky.
As I pressed my luck a few days ago, I followed an ovenbird with binoculars as it moved along the forest floor. […]
The sight of four fledgling American robins on the lawn reminded me that robins are thrushes, a family of birds that has a handful of representatives likely to be seen in spring.
Most familiar members
Most have spotted breasts and most sing impressively. Robins and bluebirds, both plain breasted as adults, are probably the most familiar […]
Nothing excites birders like the month of May. Spring migration peaks. New birds arrive almost every day. Colorful warblers and tanagers monopolize the attention, but several groups of less spectacular birds are equally interesting.
Escape the spotlight
A red-eyed vireo, for example, is a drab tree top dweller, but its return is just as notable as […]
May brings the best transitions of the year. Neotropical migrants return, wildflowers bloom and butterflies emerge. It’s my favorite month. I find it hard not to smile all month long.
Only get so many
But each year also reminds me that we get only so many Mays. The older I get, the more precious each May […]
A flash of red signals the return of a male rose-breasted grosbeak. A lemon drop bouncing across a country road means yellow warblers are back. And a patch of deep blue atop a withered snag tells me indigo buntings have arrived.
Spring migration and its parade of color are under way. The colors of birds […]
Spring equals color. Wildflowers bloom. Butterflies appear. And, of course, neotropical migratory birds return.
Though migration is well underway, the brightest and most colorful birds have not yet arrived. Give them a few more weeks. But get your hummingbird feeders up today; they’re coming back early this year (www.hummingbirds.net/map.html).
To most of us, nature’s colors […]
To avoid having chimney swifts invade your home this spring, get your chimney capped — as soon as possible.
Swifts usually return in mid-April, but precise arrival dates are tied to weather, particularly temperature, which determines the activity of flying insects.
Swifts eat flying insects exclusively. You can check their northward progress at www.chimneyswifts.org.
Chimney […]
The Platte River flows past Kearney, Neb., and in March it can be a cold, inhospitable place. It certainly was back in 1982.
I was there for a professional meeting, but I spent my first afternoon shivering in a blind overlooking the river.
Waterfowl, mostly Canada geese and mallards, covered the shallows and sand bars. […]
