February is the shortest month of the year. Consequently, you can’t waste a second if you want to fit a full month of activity in. Start now! What will you be doing this weekend and what birds are involved? Please share your plans in the comments below.
The 10,000 Birds team will take this weekend as [...]

The Black Scoter Melanitta americana, called the American Scoter by some and Melanitta nigra by others*, is a large seaduck rather readily identified by the large, shockingly-bright-yellow knob on the male’s bill that stands out amazingly well against the all-black plumage that gives the bird its common name.  The female is dressed in more muted [...]

I spent an excellent day yesterday at Portland Bird Observatory and Radipole Lake RSPB Reserve with old friend from way back Richard Crossley, ex-pat Brit, Cape May resident and co-author of the The Shorebird Guide and now well on his way to finishing what could be North America’s best ID guide (more of all of [...]

I wonder how many of us birders have ever given much thought to the production of a birding magazine? I certainly hadn’t. Someone writes a few articles, someone with a computer makes it look nice, maybe someone else prints it, and somehow it all arrives at my house nicely wrapped. It’s a bit like turning [...]

I need some help. While my online persona is of a single-minded, determined and confident young fellow (stop sniggering at the back, please), I’m actually - of course - none of those things - especially the ‘young’ bit: all those years gone, hard to imagine. I’m single-minded in that I have just the one mind, [...]

Q: Which well-known birder has just produced a book of Frequently Asked Birding Questions (FABQ)?

A: Blogger, writer, radio personality, Science Editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and well-known font of birding knowledge Laura Erickson.

To quote from ‘Introducing “The Bird Watching Answer Book” (’TBWAB’) page on ‘Round Robin’, Cornell’s bird blog, “One of the most-visited [...]

2010 - International Year of Biodiversity

Starting on January 11th, 2010 becomes - and I’m sure this will come as a surprise to many of us - the start of the United Nations-designated International Year of Biodiversity (UN General Assembly Resolution 61/203).

2010 is supposed to be the year when commitments and agreements signed in 2001 [...]

With many, many, many apologies to Wallace Stevens, who does not deserve what I am about to do to his most famous poem, here is my take on the Superbowl of birding, which has been covered almost exhaustively already by my teammates on the Bloggerhead Kingbirds, Andrew, John, Christopher, Mike, and Nate.  So, without further ado, [...]