Short posts highlighting a recent subject
Cedar Waxwings are notorious fruit and berry eaters. Zoologists consider them among the most frugivorous birds – a bird that thrives mostly on fruit and fruit-like produce of plants – in North America. Even their name is a reference to their frugivorous diets, they especially love cedar berries. In the fall large flocks can descend […]
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Large flocks of ‘Fall’ migrating Sandhill Cranes are no longer just using the farm fields of middle GA as a stopover, some are staying for the winter. Historically, eastern Sandhill Cranes fly to the Florida prairies for the winter. One exception is a population that winters near the Okefenokee Swamp & the Grand Bay Wildlife […]
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Different species of birds often stop their territorial bickering and competition to cooperatively forage together and improve one or both species’ success rate. This cooperation can take a variety of forms. For waterbirds it is often commensal, that is, one species benefits and the other neither benefits or is harmed. A common form of commensalism […]
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Birds do ‘cough’ like we do, but their coughing sounds are very different. We have diaphragms and birds don’t. When we cough, it’s our diaphragm that forces air through our vocal cords producing our deep, loud ‘coughing’ (hacking) sound. We have one larynx (voice box) at the beginning of our windpipes. Birds have a more […]
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Rusty Blackbirds have the steepest population decline of any North American songbird: 85-99% depending on location over the last 40 years. That’s why having them visit our yard is a special treat and a sign that bringing the yard back to a state more closely resembling the piedmont forest that was once here is paying […]
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,,, or any other native fall-ripening berry plant. In autumn, many species of birds switch from an insect rich diet to including more ‘fruits and vegetables’. For year-round residents and partial, short-haul migrants this switch provides fats, amino acids, and antioxidants that help them recover from molting and prepare for winter. For the long-haul migrants, […]
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This is a Barred Owl that visited our yard yesterday. Based on ‘smaller’ size, a male, I think. In most species, males are larger than females . This is called ‘male-biased size dimorphism’. Owls & other raptors tend to be exceptions. Males tend to be the smaller of the pair.There are multiple theories of why […]
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It’s mid-September, the heat has finally broke, and Female and immature Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are putting on the last few grams to get them across the Gulf of Mexico. It seems that one criteria for deciding if it is time to go is they can’t see their feet 🙂 As a bonus, this is the time […]
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After the flurry of spring arrivals it may seem that Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have disappeared from our flowers and feeders and the wild. This is mostly an illusion. Females, who most years out number males, spend the summer doing all the parental duties (males leave after the fun part). Moms do all that is necessary to […]
Read MoreBlack Skimmers are one of many shorebird species that form breeding colonies and lay their eggs in small scrapes directly on dunes & beaches. Their species survival strategy is simple: Large numbers in a breeding colony, sometimes mixed, for more lookout eyes, effective egg camouflage, and short incubation\fledgling times to minimize the open exposures. This […]
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