You are browsing the archives of 2005 May.

Now that the Core Team May warbler census (a colorful way to say that we did a lot of birding this month) has concluded, it’s time to review. Wood-warblers are fantastic little insectivores, brilliantly diverse in plumage, behavior, and habitat. North America is home to 54 species of warblers in 17 genera. All but one [...]

The Core Team May warbler blitz continued unabated this weekend. We were joined by Seth, who has, at long last, succumbed to the sweet siren song of birding. He’s even started his life list, so we tried to pad it as thoroughly as we could with the pulchritudinous passerines of spring migration. Saturday found us [...]

The sinuous, elegant image of a Great Egret echoed on the placid surface of the Spuyten Duyvil calls to mind the following quote by the irrepressible wag, Oscar Wilde: Beauty is a form of genius — is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world [...]

Grackles are intimidating birds, there’s no denying it. With their dagger beaks, sinister strut, and evil yellow glare, they often seem as if they’d as soon kill a body as look at him. The grackles in Texas seem especially threatening. At the risk of anthropomorphizing avifauna, I’d say that the Lone Star birds bear malice [...]

When the Core Team went birding this past weekend, we weren’t just looking for warblers. Rumor had it that sparrows beyond the typical House and White-throated varieties could be found lurking about Central Park. Like 99.99% of the population, we have trouble distinguishing one little brown job from another, but that doesn’t stop us from [...]

The world is surely an odd place. Every day is thick with tales of woe and madness, a glut of spin and sin that ultimately jades even the most inquisitive soul. How else can one explain how the mystery of the exploding toads failed to make the front page of every newspaper. I mean, toads [...]

Spring migration has hit NYC hard, like a horde of bloodthirsty barbarians rampaging across the boroughs, except that the barbarians are actually exquisite songbirds that are thirsty for insects and seeds rather than blood. Yes, that metaphor is extremely awkward but my original one, a bird bomb exploding in Manhattan, seemed in poor taste. Suffice [...]