History, Natural History & the Arts
One morning early, as I slept in our mountain cabin Mateskared, a woodpecker landed on the cabin’s wood siding. Its profound rapid-fire pecking jerked me out of sound sleep.
Did we have robo-termites?
Not in the Adirondacks. [Read more…] about Ed Zahniser: Woodpecker Wake-up Calls
In the first global test of the idea, scientists have found evidence that some woodpeckers can evolve to look like another species of woodpecker in the same neighborhood. The researchers say that this “plumage mimicry” isn’t a fluke – it happens among pairs of distantly related woodpeckers all over the world. [Read more…] about Some Woodpeckers Imitate a Neighbor’s Plumage
“That’s a downy. No wait, it’s a hairy – definitely a hairy. Well, hang on…maybe it is a downy.” I admit it: I’ve had this happen to me more than once. [Read more…] about Downy or Hairy Woodpecker?
A woodpecker frequently visits our feeder, alighting on the wooden supporting post and hopping up the post to the suet. Its medium size and striking markings – black wings spotted with white, a large white patch on the back, and a red spot on the back of the head – identify the bird as a male hairy woodpecker. The female, which also comes to our feeder, lacks the red patch on the head.
The hairy woodpecker is easy to confuse with its almost identical cousin, the downy woodpecker, another of our feeder guests. However, the hairy is about one-third larger than the downy and has a longer, sturdier bill – about the same length as its head. [Read more…] about Hairy Woodpecker: Insect Hunter Extraordinaire
While most natural winter sounds tend to carry only short distances, there is one that is loud enough to travel well over a hundred yards.
Even when the limbs and boughs are coated with an audio-absorbing layer of snow, the voice of the pileated woodpecker periodically breaks the silence and resounds through our mature woodlands. [Read more…] about Pileated Woodpeckers: Denizens Of Our Old Forests
House Sparrows were introduced in Brooklyn in 1851. They expanded rapidly to become one of the most common species in the U.S. and Canada.
The European House Sparrow has a story to tell about survival in the modern world. In parts of its native range in Europe, House Sparrow numbers are down by nearly 60%. Their fate in the U.S. and Canada is less well known. [Read more…] about Even The Common House Sparrow Is In Decline Study Finds
Love them or hate them, there’s no doubt the European Starling is a wildly successful bird. A new study from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the journal Molecular Ecology examines this non-native species from the inside out.
The study looks at what exactly happened at the genetic level as the starling population exploded from just 80 birds released in New York City’s Central Park in 1890, peaking at an estimated 200 million breeding adults spread all cross North America. [Read more…] about Starling Success Traced to Rapid Adaptation
The 24th annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is set to take place February 12th through 15th.
During the Great Backyard Bird Count people from around the world count the birds they see for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count, and then enter their checklists online. [Read more…] about Great Backyard Bird Count Starts Friday
Atlantic Population (AP) Canada geese nest throughout northern Quebec and winter from New England to South Carolina. The largest concentrations of AP geese occur on the Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware and the eastern shores of Maryland & Virginia). [Read more…] about Precipitous Decline In Atlantic Canada Goose Cuts Hunting Season Short
There are only a few dozen species of birds capable of surviving the rigors of an Adirondack winter, and of these, the wild turkey is one that is more closely associated with the warmer and less snowy regions of New York than those to the north. [Read more…] about The Wild Turkey in Winter