Established in 1931 to protect habitat for migratory birds (and as we now know Monarch Butterflies) in the Big Bend Region of Florida’s Gulf Coast, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge is one of the oldest refuges in the National Wildlife Refuge System. Located 25 miles south of Tallahassee and just east of Florida’s Forgotten Coast […]
Read More
“The annual Wings Over Water festival is held each October to celebrate the wildlife and environment of coastal North Carolina. This wildlife festival includes over 90 trips & programs involving birding, paddling, photography, art, and natural history, and helps raise funds for local National Wildlife Refuges.” Ann and I attended the 2022 festival. Even though Ann […]
Read More
In field guides, this species is listed as Swainson’s Thrush, with a note that they are often called Olive-backed. And a case can be made for Salmonberry Bird, at least for the population on the NW coast of the U.S. and the coast of Canada’s Inland Passage. I’m going with Olive-backed because it could be […]
Read More
A male Ruby-throated Hummingbird caught in the act of ‘hawking’.
Read More
“The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run; ‘Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass stir; Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr; Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run; And the sea and the marsh are one. How still the plains of the waters be! […]
Read More
Eastern Bluebird enjoying a Spring day – in February Decatur Georgia’s Legacy Park (formerly Decatur Methodist Children’s Home) open fields have been replanted with native grasses and bluebird boxes have been added to supplement the natural cavities in tree snags that are safe to leave standing. There are plenty of fence posts and telephone lines, […]
Read More
This is the male of the pair of Barred Owls that call #clydeshepherdnaturepreserve home. After skipping nesting in the preserve in 2020 and then nesting in a large dead tree snag cavity in the front part of the preserve last year that drew a paparazzi-sized crowd, the pair has returned to the owl box deeper in the […]
Read More
I will start by admitting that I’ve not always praised dead, fallen leaves ‘littering’ our lawn. I invested (heavily) in a wide range of tools, especially gas-powered, as well as yard crews, so that each Fall we could rid our little ecosystem of unsightly disorder of dead organic material on top of our lawn. Then […]
Read More
When the cold fronts start moving through the South, the birdwatching web sites light up with posts from many new birders along the lines of: “Bless their hearts, are my poor little babies going to freeze to death?” The answers back are along the lines of: One way birds stay warm is by using their […]
Read More
I’ve seen it hundreds of times. A bird of prey that has been sitting quietly still and unnoticed deep in a tree canopy suddenly explodes into flight. Maneuvers through the branches and limbs of the treetops to take its prey. I’m awestruck every time. This Red-tailed Hawk hunting in our yard on two recent days […]
Read More