Looks like a hawk. Scavenges for carrion like a vulture. Is actually a falcon. Common in open grasslands, rangelands, and scrubby areas of South & Central America, a small population, about 1,000 individuals, lives in the similar dry prairies with scattered palm cabbage of south-central Florida. Most of which are within large private cattle ranches. […]
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Cedar Waxwings are winter resident fruit specialists here in metro-Atlanta. But because they are late nesters & can be short-haul migrants, going only as far north as the high-elevations of the North GA mountains, they will hang around gorging on spring\early summer berry crops. Native serviceberries are a favorite. Waxwings will gather in small flocks […]
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Prothonotary Warblers should be known, in my opinion, as the field mark appropriate, easier to remember & pronounce, Golden Swamp Warbler. This is another example of obscure 18th century conceitful naming. Prothonotaries are papal clerks that wear yellow robes. Yellow being the only common characteristic & certainly not a connection known by common folks, especially […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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A male Ruby-throated Hummingbird caught in the act of ‘hawking’.
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“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! […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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