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
A highly popular shore fishing destination, Target Rock is just one of five properties that form the Long Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex. It also has an interesting history.
Located on Lloyd’s Neck in Long Island Sound 25 miles east of New York City, the land was originally maintained as a garden estate by the Eberstadt family who donated it in 1967 to establish a sanctuary for migratory birds. [Read more…] about Wildlife & History: Target Rock National Wildlife Refuge
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
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
If you’re looking for warblers on a walk in the summer woods, your first instinct might be to look toward the canopy. But two closely related warbler species forgo those elevated environs for the eddies and banks of forested streams and wetlands. These specialists of sylvan waters are a treat for any birder – and offer a challenging exercise in avian identification.
The northern waterthrush (Parkesia noveboracensis) and Louisiana waterthrush (Parkesia motacilla) are mid-sized, vocal warblers that breed in Northern New England and New York. Both forage in still and moving water. [Read more…] about Waterthrushes: Winged Kings of the Bog and Stream
The shift begins around the time we turn the clocks ahead, a gradual transition from winter’s steady chorus of chickadees, squawking jays, and crows cawing over the compost pile to – well, more. On an afternoon walk along back roads, I’ll hear an avian uprising and look up to find a large flock of red-winged blackbirds gathered in the still-bare branches overhead. [Read more…] about Learning the Language of Birding
For nearly 15 years, I have been exploring the headwaters of a river near my home. The entire drainage area, encompassing all the streams, rainfall, and snowmelt that pass into a single river, is called a watershed.
Within each watershed, a system of rivers and streams forms a network, in which small first-order streams (headwaters) meet to form second-order streams that converge to form third-order streams, and so on. [Read more…] about Headwater Streams: Vital Sources of Clean Water
Fourteen years of monitoring by many hundreds of community scientists has revealed that mountain birds face challenging times and significant declines in the Northeast.
Research sheds light on the underlying driving forces behind these declines, with climate change likely a root cause. [Read more…] about Study: Mountain Birds Facing Steep Decline
If you take a walk through a thick, broadleaf forest on a cool summer morning, you might recognize the cascading, metallic song of a thrush called a veery. It is an ethereal sound that echoes through the understory, like the ring of a haunted cell phone. [Read more…] about It Takes a Village to Raise a Veery
On the cold, coniferous mountaintops of the Catskills and Adirondacks lives a native bird that is a High Priority Species of Greatest Conservation Need: the Bicknell’s Thrush.
Nesting in the low branches of stunted conifers, Bicknell’s Thrush exclusively relies on high altitude spruce-fir forests in the northeast to nest and raise chicks. Bicknell’s Thrush is considered one of the most at-risk songbirds in eastern North America and highly vulnerable to habitat loss. [Read more…] about Birding Spotlight: Bicknell’s Thrush
Bicknell’s Thrush was first identified by American amateur ornithologist Eugene Bicknell on Slide Mountain in the Catskills in the late 19th century.
This rare songbird prefers our State’s higher peaks and will soon be returning from its winter residency in Hispaniola. [Read more…] about Bicknell’s Thrush: A History Podcast
Mornings are quiet now. Gone is the loud chorus of bird song outside my window that I awoke to in spring and summer. While we brave the cold, snow, and bitter winds of winter by donning extra layers or throwing another log on the fire, most of our summer birds have departed for the warmer temperatures and abundant food of more southern latitudes. [Read more…] about Bird Migration: Where Are They Now?
To paraphrase Marvin the Martian, a cartoon character whose attempts to conquer Earth were always foiled by Bugs Bunny, “Zap first and ask questions later.” The little alien with the big Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator ray-gun was so jumpy that he zapped anything that moved. In the end, though, he never hit anything which could remotely be considered a threat. [Read more…] about Kill Your Bug Zapper And Do The World A Favor
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