This spring has been rife with reports from backyard birders spotting finches and other feeder birds suffering from red, swollen eyes—the telltale sign of avian conjunctivitis. Bird Watcher’s Digest columnist and wildlife rehabilitator Julie Zickefoose has been treating birds with mycoplasma for many years, and she reports that this is the worst spring she’s ever… Read more »
The weekend of February 12–15, unleash your inner citizen scientist by joining the Great Backyard Bird Count. Participation can be as simple as spending 15 minutes (or more!) on at least one of the four days observing the birds in your backyard—or anywhere else—and reporting your findings. Participating is simple for birders of all ages… Read more »
Audubon’s long-standing tradition of Christmas Bird Counts are conducted each year between December 14 and January 5, and this season marked the 121st annual CBC! BWD editors Dawn Hewitt and Jessica Melfi participated in different counts on January 2, and here they share their very different—but equally memorable—experiences. The Thrills of Christmas Bird Counts by Dawn Hewitt Oh,… Read more »
We asked, and you all answered—thank you to everyone who responded to our call to celebrate a Green Friday the day after Thanksgiving! You will see in the gallery below some of the marvelous pictures our Facebook fans shared with us. Look at all those happy faces enjoying fresh air and nature, everywhere from their… Read more »
We have a lot to be thankful for here at Bird Watcher’s Digest and Redstart Birding. There are our readers and our customers and the birding community that keep us in business. And our friends and family, of course. And our own crew that feels more like family than colleagues. This Thanksgiving—this year especially—we wish… Read more »
Because of its great success in getting people outside and enjoying nature the day after Thanksgiving, we’ve decided to bring Green Friday back in 2020! In a time when social distancing is of utmost importance, this calmer alternative to fighting the crowds for Black Friday shopping just feels like the right thing to do this… Read more »
In case you missed it, last weekend, October 17–18, was the first Global Bird Weekend, “a new venture that aims to inspire birdwatchers to come together as a global community and celebrate birds, by participating in birdwatching, birdwatching events, citizen science and conservation.” The agenda for the weekend obviously included birding on Saturday, known as… Read more »
We’re in the midst of Global Bird Rescue Week (October 5–11), an annual event sponsored by FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program) Canada, whose mission is to inform and educate people around the world to take action to keep birds safe from building collisions. Hundreds of millions of birds fatally collide with windows and buildings in… Read more »
The latest issue of Bird Watcher’s Digest will be hitting mailboxes in the next week or so, and our subscribers might notice something different about the cover… something bright, something bold, something more expressionistic than our readers are used to. We would like to introduce our newest cover artist, Christina Baal, and her cover of… Read more »
We here at BWD have been racking up some serious miles attending birding festivals lately: In August we went to Southeast Arizona, last weekend we visited Cape May, New Jersey, and next weekend we’re headed to Hawai’i… and you can come, too—for FREE! All of this travel is, of course, being done virtually, but it… Read more »
