Ben and Alvaro discuss bird behavior in winter and how big birds, little birds, and vagrant birds cope with temperature extremes. Some birds fly away from the weather while others become zombie birds, preying on their fellow feathered friends! It’s looking like spring in Southern California while Alvaro braces for more winter as he discusses… Read more »
Episode 49 is a special two-part episode of OTWTB. Bill and Ben have a heartfelt discussion about why 2019 is going to be a different kind of year for the podcast, and why it will be the “Year of the Big Sit” for Bill. Ben then welcomes Alvaro Jaramillo to the show, and we learn… Read more »
By Rack Cross When it comes to birding trails one size does not fit all. Kingsport, nestled in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains of Northeast Tennessee, hosted an unforeseen series of events in our city of about 54,000 people that resulted in a municipal birding trail that serves to improve the quality of life… Read more »
Heatwaves can have a negative impact on breeding birds, according researchers at Lund University in Sweden. Overheated birds have smaller offspring with lower chances of survival, their study showed. In spring 2018, Andreas Nord and Jan-Åke Nilsson, researchers in the Department of Biology at Lund University, presented results showing that small birds reach a body… Read more »
Arguably the most beautiful bird species in the world, resplendent quetzals are found only from extreme southern Mexico to extreme northern Panama. They are birds of the cloud forest, dependent on fruit-bearing trees, especially those in the Lauraceae family, including the wild avocado. The IUCN considers resplendent quetzal as near threatened on its Red List,… Read more »
Ben gives LeBron-like advice for buying binoculars for kids or beginning birders, explains the visual difference between roof- and Porro-prism binoculars, and updates us on his last backyard bird sighting: a red-breasted nuthatch. Bill talks about a rusty blackbird encounter and how to tell rusties from common grackles. Then the boys welcome Clay Taylor from… Read more »
Favorite holiday gifts given and received is a major topic of this episode and among those gifts mentioned are a hockey stick, a mink coat, ten-speed bikes, and a vintage saucepan. Ben’s nightmare Christmas Bird Count experience and Bill’s Disney World surprise stories take center stage. Also mentioned are a conspiracy theory about wild birds,… Read more »
The Trump administration published documents today (December 6, 2018) detailing its plan to roll back Obama-era protections for the vast habitat of the greater sage grouse in order to spur oil exploration and development, according to the New York Times. Read the story here. The documents from the Bureau of Land Management are here.
Back to the North from points farther south, the fellows chat throughout a winter-themed episode about such topics as suet feeding, birding in Texas and Colombia, weather and birds, winter clothing, acclimatization, fogging optics, and Ben’s new-found love of silk long johns. Bill recounts a traumatic first grade incident involving yellow snow, and his latest… Read more »
Reprinted from the Birding Community E-Bulletin The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species maintains a record of how close species may be to extinction. BirdLife International is responsible for annually measuring the health of the world of birds for this tally. Every year, BirdLife updates which birds are stable, which are in recovery, and which… Read more »
