Brown Thrasher, Georgia’s State Bird

And I think they are a great choice. Not because they’re colorful. Or, cute. Or, somehow exotic. I think the school children of Georgia, in 1928, followed many years later in 1970 by the legislature, made the right choice because Brown Thrashers are tough, good looking in a rough and ready kind of way, and […]

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When Brown Is Blue

For a long time I thought color was simple. I saw something and I knew its color. Why wouldn’t I? I had been taught my colors in kindergarten. This was reinforced in my feral childhood. A Northern Cardinal was clearly red. Sparrows were ‘little brown jobbies‘. Pine Warbler’s were bright yellow spots amongst the green […]

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Meet Dempsey the Eastern Towhee

I’ve received very nice comments about my Towhee shots on Facebook. Let me introduce you to the star. This is Dempsey. He has become my office mate over the last few months. When I’m remote working in my front porch office he’s out working the yard for insects. He doesn’t mind me as long as […]

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Irruption Year Bonus Yard Birds

Irruption years are a good news, bad news, good news story. The first good news is masting in the northern boreal forests. Masting is when a tree species food source has an abundant+ crop. For example, conifers. This allows the bird species that rely on that food source to have a great breeding season – […]

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Courtship Cedar Waxwing Style

This pair of Cedar Waxwings (a species of bird that seems to be a fan favorite based on number of Likes & comments on my Facebook posts) were sitting in an old mulberry tree at the edge of our driveway. The behavior seems to be courtship dancing, but the timing is very odd this being […]

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Winter Berries Bring The Birds

And they’re cheaper than suet 🙂 We have a bumper crop of Chinese Holly and Carolina Cherry-laurel berries in our yard. One of the few upsides of 2020. The hollies are so full that the limbs are bending perilously downward. The part-time and full-time berry eaters are loving it. Chines Hollies are not native (duh, […]

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Moving Northward

We have Eastern Towhees living and nesting in our yard – strikingly marked large sparrows that call on us to “Drink Your Tea!!”. This is not unusual for our part of Georgia. They are considered to be numerous, even though their population numbers declined 49% between 1966 and 2015, according to the North American Breeding […]

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