History, Natural History & the Arts
“There is a singer everyone has heard, / Loud, a mid-summer and mid-wood bird…”
Heard, yes, but maybe not seen. This bird keeps me company on summer walks, calling out tea-CHER tea-CHER tea-CHER in loud, ringing tones. When I hear it, I imagine Robert Frost pausing in his New Hampshire sugarbush to pen his ode to the ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla). [Read more…] about The Often-Overlooked Ovenbird
One predator-prey interaction always leaves me torn. Birds sparked my love for the natural world years ago, but after my interest lapsed during adolescence, bees brought me back into the fold.
So I found myself split between two allegiances the first time I watched a bird, in this case, a gray catbird, swoop into the garden and snatch a bumblebee on the wing. [Read more…] about Birds Preying on Stinging Insects: A Meal Worth the Sting?
Henry Davis Minot was born near Forest Hills (part of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston) in 1859, the sixth of seven children of William and Katharine Maria Sedgwick Minot.
He took an early interest in ornithology (the study of birds), recording careful observations, including, at the age of 11, what he believed to be a new species of bird in 1871 (it turned out not to be the case). [Read more…] about Henry Davis Minot’s Adirondack Warbler & ‘Diary of a Bird’
If you live near a large meadow, hayfield, or grassland, you may have recently noticed some bubbly robotic noises emanating from those areas. It might sound like an overexcited android, but the real source is a medium-sized songbird, the bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus).
One of the few avian grassland specialists in the Northeast, bobolinks have recently returned from their wintering grounds in southern South America and are now fully engaged in breeding activity. [Read more…] about Bobolink: The Grassland Bird in a Reverse Tuxedo
New York State is home to several rare and fragile floating bogs and fens. These unique ecosystems feature mats of sphagnum moss and vegetation that actually float over water.
Bogs and fens are both peatlands (wetlands that build up deposits of dead plant matter called peat). The primary difference is their water source: bogs are largely by nutrient-poor rainwater, making them highly acidic. Fens are fed by mineral-rich groundwater, making them alkaline or neutral. [Read more…] about Rare and Fragile Floating Bogs and Fens
One of the great joys of early May in the Northeast is the dawn-break aubade of songbirds returning to summer habitats or passing through to their nesting grounds in higher latitudes.
Mornings that only a month ago were silent – save the croaking crows and shrieking blue jays – are now filled with a polyphonic chorus of trills, chirrs, and fluted arias that quicken both body and soul. [Read more…] about Songbirds Struggle With Noise Pollution
Spring is an ideal time to observe bird migrations. New York is conveniently located along the Atlantic Flyway, one of the main migration routes.
This provides a great opportunity to observe birds flying to their summer breeding grounds. Here’s a few resources to get you started: [Read more…] about Watching Migrating Birds This Spring: A Primer
The morning after a nighttime snowfall evokes feelings of newness and wonder. If the air is calm and the trees still retain their coat of fluffy white, I immediately bundle up and head out to explore. I trudge into the woods looking and listening for signs of life in this alien world.
It is not uncommon for me to follow in the footsteps of others; coyotes, bobcats, foxes, deer, rabbits, and squirrels have already been out and about. I visually follow their tracks, trying to decipher the short vignettes that have been temporarily etched onto the landscape. I stop for a few minutes to listen. Everything is still. [Read more…] about A Tiny King of the Winter Woods: Golden-Crowned Kinglets
Since it was first introduced into New York State in January 2022, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) has been documented in captive birds in multiple counties and detected in free-ranging wild birds and mammals throughout the state.
Wild bird mortalities from HPAI increase in late fall and peak over the winter months, then typically decrease in the late spring and summer months. At this point, it is widespread in wild birds and even suspected to be present in counties where it has not yet been detected. [Read more…] about Stay Alert for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza
Each fall, migrating birds can be seen flying south to their wintering grounds.
This is the ideal time of year for New York residents and visitors to head to Bird Conservation Areas across the state for great bird watching opportunities. [Read more…] about Fall Bird Migration is Underway
A yellowthroat warbler sang, “witchety, witchety, witch,” as I carefully made my way through the tangle of an alder swamp one afternoon not long ago.
I looked about, hoping to catch a glimpse of its yellow breast and black mask. I could hear the twangs of green frogs calling in the distance. A dragonfly zoomed past me, then flew back and landed on my shoulder. [Read more…] about Exploring Shrub Swamps
The Western New York Land Conservancy has announced that it will be fundraising to permanently protect six properties in the Western New York Wildway this year totaling 732 acres.
All six properties are located within Core Areas of the Wildway, the Land Conservancy’s landscape-scale conservation initiative that seeks to protect and connect some of the largest remaining forests in the region. [Read more…] about Land Conservancy Seeks Protection of Western NY Wildway Lands
One recent morning, trying to find the source of a warbler trill high in a white pine tree, I was rewarded with a brilliant flash of orange. It was my first sighting of a Blackburnian warbler, one of the most beautiful songbirds in the northern woods.
While Blackburnian warblers are not uncommon in mature conifer and mixed hardwood forests, they can be hard to see, since they forage and nest high in the branches. But once spotted, they are easy to identify. [Read more…] about The Brilliant Blackburnian Warbler
From forest edges and thickets on late spring mornings in the Northeast comes what sounds like an exhortation from across the pond: drink-your-tea!
This is not a British parent’s plea, but rather the song of a chunky, colorful sparrow: the eastern towhee. The eastern towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus, or “red-eyed chipper”) is found in much of the eastern United States. [Read more…] about Eastern Towhee: Dapper Sparrow of the Underbrush
While grasses are getting greener and flowers are blooming, New Yorkers, high on many people’s priorities is pulling out their mower and beginning the summer-long cycle of mowing their fields or larger lawns. However, the timing of mowing can have significant impacts on a variety of bird species.
Small grassland songbirds nest on, or close to, the ground in grassy and shrubby fields. Mowing and bush-hogging during the spring and early summer can destroy nests and remove the habitat required to successfully raise their young. [Read more…] about Mowing Practices to Benefit Ground-Nesting Birds
There is nothing like the royal blue of an indigo bunting. In the Northeast, they arrive fashionably late to the spring fling, behind the vanguard of migrating warblers and other songbirds.
On my morning walk in my frequent birding spot – my “patch” as birders call it – I heard the sharp double-noted tune: “Look! Look! What! What! Where! Where! See it! See it!” I peered into my binoculars and found a male indigo bunting perched on a sprawling limb of a red oak. [Read more…] about The Indigo Bunting: A Celestial Creature
The Nature of the Place: On the Flora and Fauna of the Adirondacks (North Country Books, 2025) is Adirondack nature writer Edward Kanze’s invitation to slow down, smell the roses, and get to know fellow creatures with more longstanding claims to this landscape than we have.
Theirs is the real internet Kanze argues, a web of life that weaves together an almost infinite number of threads into a fabric that’s a wonder to behold and something close to a miracle in a largely hostile universe. [Read more…] about Ed Kanze’s Nature of the Place Reflects on Adirondack Flora and Fauna
The poetry of Walt Whitman is crowded with allusions to song and the singer. Music was important to him in life (he had worked as a music journalist) and is a central metaphor in his work. The poet of “I Hear America Singing” was blessed with an ear for inner rhythms which he transformed into melodious free verse that broke the barriers of poetic language.
Given the musicality of his songs, it is not surprising that the poet inspired composers around the world (the number of settings of his texts exceed 1,200). [Read more…] about The Canary Craze & Walt Whitman
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has launched an online platform for the public to report suspected Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreaks in wild birds. The platform was designed as part of an ongoing effort to monitor HPAI in New York. [Read more…] about Report Suspected Cases of Avian Influenza in Wild Birds
Walking along a dirt road last winter, I heard a collection of pleasant, sputtering trills coming from a stand of conifers and hardwoods nearby.
I’m used to the winter conversation of chickadees around feeder and woods, the cawing of crows and blue jays in the yard, and the high-pitched calls of golden-crowned kinglets sounding from the trees in winter – but I didn’t recognize this sound. [Read more…] about Bohemian Waxwings: Intrepid Winter Wanderers
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