By Clay Taylor When the folks at Bird Watcher’s Digest collaborated with Swarovski Optik to supply the top prize for their 2014 Birder of the Year contest, picking the prize-winner’s birding trip was a no-brainer: Costa Rica! Winner Lyn Stallings and husband John Rumm of Cody, Wyoming, were thrilled to be taking their first birding… Read more »
Nestled in the Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio, approximately 75 miles east of Columbus, are nearly 10,000 acres of reclaimed surface mine habitat unlike any other area in the state. One of the world’s largest conservation centers has been located here since 1984. Birders know The Wilds as a phenomenal area to watch birds, especially… Read more »
In the past I have spent a good deal of time at sea censusing seabirds and marine mammals. Some years I was away from home for upwards of seven months, mostly working as a biologist on research cruises for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Point Blue… Read more »
Few, if any, British birds have inspired poets in quite the same way as the nightingale. The skylark, Shelley’s ‘blithe spirit’, probably comes close, but nightingales edge it. They wait until almost all other birds are asleep before launching into their melodic and astonishingly powerful song, the better to project their presence to potential mates, but clearly… Read more »
The challenges facing bird conservation are daunting—but what we eat and drink can support habitat that is good for birds and for farmers too. Nearly 30 years ago, scientists at the National Zoo, led by the late Russ Greenberg, began researching the role traditional coffee farms in Latin America play in providing winter habitat for… Read more »
Here in the Midwest, it’s been a glorious spring—something we deserved after that brutal, seemingly endless winter. And all the more glorious for the fabulous songbird migration I witnessed in southern Ohio and southern West Virginia. I’ve been a birder for 36 years, and spring migration is always a much-anticipated annual treat. But this is… Read more »
Birders. We’re almost a different species. It sounds like a tee-shirt slogan, but it’s kind of true. We have our own language, our own specialized tools, some dances (the lifer wiggle, the mosquito-swatting swingstep, e.g.), a traditional costume. We’ve even developed a geography that relies on questionable criteria that appeal only to the few, the… Read more »
Recently my son Jack and I were exploring some areas of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a place I’ve been birding for some 15 years. There is a place called the Manatee Observation Deck positioned along Haulover Canal. It’s not a frequent stop for me during my usual romps, but the drawbridge over the canal… Read more »
Warblers do it. Vireos do it. Even tiny hummingbirds do it. They cross the Gulf of Mexico in one fell swoop, a flight lasting more than 20 hours. The destination airport for many is the Alabama coast. Since 1987, Bob and Martha Sargent have been netting and banding birds at Fort Morgan State Park, a… Read more »
Braddock Bay, just west of Rochester, NY ( my home town!) is one of the best sites on the continent to observe hawk migration in spring, and this April it will serve as the site of a major hawk-watching conference. Like many Great Lakes communities, the Rochester region is quietly known as having many exciting… Read more »
