A Pied-billed Grebe trio on Crooked Tree LagoonIt was a beautiful misty sunrise in Crooked Tree this morning, and I got a solid eight hours of sleep last night! I had been, for all intents and purposes, awake for 36 hours –less the 90 minute, restless nap I had from 1am to 2:30am before departing…

A wonderful local find 5 days ago was a Le Conte’s Sparrow in Delaware County, PA by Al Guarente. Named by Audubon for the amateur naturalist Dr. John Le Conte, there have only been a handful of records in the Delaware Valley. This diminutive sparrow of wet grassy meadows that is notoriously secretive breeds in…

Common names are usually used to describe a certain attribute, body part or physical appearance of a species that can differentiate it from another member of its genus. A great many names use coloration to make this distinction such as Chestnut-sided Warbler, Rufous-backed Robin, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Purple Gallinule, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Red-tailed Hawk, Scarlet…

It’s Thursday and I am off to Belize again! This tiny country changed my life in 1993. It was the first country I visited that required a passport. Before that, all my travels had been in North America. By my 12th birthday my family had already camped in all 48 continental US states, at least…

In a nutshell, the rules of nomenclature (naming species) states that the name given to a new species stands in its initial form even if there are mistakes. While it is a rare occasion when the scientific name does get altered, common names on the other hand often do get changed. Sometimes two birds (usually…

At 1:25AM I picked up Frank. Edie was next at 1:40AM and the three of us were off, headed to Massachusetts. Five States later at 7:15AM we arrived just north of Plymouth Rock to find a half dozen frozen birders scanning all over the bay. At 7:55AM someone shouts ‘white-winged’ gull and sure enough one…

One of the biggest challenges about leading birding trips around the world is the increasingly-restrictive air travel regulations. By contrast, one of the newfound joys of travelling certainly has to be Nikon’s ED (extra low dispersion) 50mm fieldscope. It comes with either a straight or angled body and is the easiest, smallest, lightest and best…

Seventeen of us participated in a DVOC field trip that Tony led to the marshes in Cumberland County. Our target was the Sandhill Crane flock that has been overwintering here for many years. Though much of the marsh was covered in ice we did manage to see Hooded Mergansers, Boat-tailed Grackles, Swamp Sparrows, Sharp-shinned Hawks,…

I spent a little time today at Roosevelt Park, a wonderful small park in South Philadelphia that is part of Fairmount Park. The park is an excellent location to find wintering Rusty Blackbirds and see waterfowl relatively close. I soon found the rusties amongst Red-winged Blackbirds resting in a tree beside the large lake. Periodically…

It has certainly been darn right freezing of late. So cold that I have seen several birds with ice build up on them. I can only find very limited information about this and most of it relates to an anecdotal account or two, like a layer of ice on the wings of geese which render…

Today while looking for the crossbills at Valley Forge National Park I got to watch two insectivores with completely different foraging techniques, the Golden-crowned Kinglet and Brown Creeper. Both of whom were identified by call before I could sight either of them. To me their calls are similar; both being very high pitched thin calls,…

Irruptive invasions are sudden large movements of one or more species into an area where they are uncommon or not expected. We see this mostly with northern passerines, winter finches and owls. Most irruptions occur during the winter months and are normally due to food shortages on their normal wintering grounds. It does not happen…