If you look carefully at the picture above of a female White-winged Crossbill you will notice that her bill is in the snow. She is busy picking up snow to eat. In the harsh winters of the northern hemisphere, most easily accessible water sources are frozen. Birds rely upon water to not only keep their…

I found it interesting watching the way the elongated tufts of feathers on some of the birds that we saw change shape. Crest plumes enhance the outline of a bird and are raised as a visual display to either attract the opposite sex or as a threat display. Bohemian Waxwings (above) spend most of the…

I have just returned from having led a DVOC field trip with 10 members to Eastern Ontario. It was my second such Canadian jaunt in as many months where the northern owls and winter passerines continue to put on a wonderful show. For a change we had 3 gorgeous days of bright sunshine which made…

You will notice a lack of photos in the blog today. I don’t always find it necessary to carry my camera when I go out, and often joke that we see the best things when I leave it behind. Yesterday my girlfriend, Lisa, and I went for a walk at the Mill Grove Audubon Sanctuary.…

On the days that I head into the office, better known as Kevin’s basement, I drive a sizable length of a major highway and without fail I see at least two or three Red-tailed Hawks. If it is a few hours after sunrise on a cold but sunny day there may be a dozen or…

Swallow-tailed Gulls are one of nearly 30 endemic bird species found in the Galapagos Islands. These gulls were not shy as I photographed them with an 18mm wide-angle lens! The same lens was used for the Land Iguana below. Today we are celebrating my Uncle Bob’s 90th birthday! Though he was born on the same…

This Chestnut-sided Warbler was photographed in western Panama. Most of our tour participants are from North America, so when we are in the tropics in winter, it is not unusual to hear someone exclaim, “that’s one of our birds.” On this recent trip to Belize, however, we had a couple from, “across the Pond.” England…

Some ‘southern’ species have naturally expanded their range northwards. The increase in backyard feeding stations surely has something to do with this expansion as it has made it easier for some species to survive the winters, but on the other hand could global warming be the primary reason? Though there were rare reports of Red-bellied…

Today I got to watch a wonderful encounter between an immature Cooper’s Hawk and a Gray Squirrel. There were two squirrels, doing what squirrels do, rummaging about on the grass when I caught sight of a Cooper’s Hawk flying into a nearby tree. The squirrels saw the same thing and froze. Sitting on a branch…

It may still be the dead of winter, but when today’s temperatures crawled into the 50’s and the snow began to melt, a warbler I came across got me thinking several months ahead. It will not be long before spring is here and we get to see our spectacular wood warblers once again in bright…

With a solid covering of snow on the ground it is not surprising that so many birds coming to backyard feeding stations at the moment. White-throated Sparrows are a common sight in winter hopping about the ground below our feeders helping themselves to small round pale millet seeds. Some of them are very striking with…