You are browsing the archives of 2006 January.

I didn’t realize that it was customary at year end to ruminate on one’s previous 52 weeks of avian observation, but I’m happy to take my cue from folks like Nuthatch, John, Eric of Feather Weather, the Birders in Boxers, and others who looked back fondly on their birds of 2005.

Number of species seen in [...]

Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, 11 January 2006.
 

Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve

 
After a few hours in the morning spent at the Ramsar-designated wetlands of Marievale, the rest of the day was spent driving slowly around Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, a beautiful and peaceful 13000ha island of protected highveld grassland and thornveld just off the N3 - one of the [...]

White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys
Panoche Valley, San Benito Co, California. January 2006>
 
White-crowned Sparrows breed from Alaska eastwards along most of northern Canada. During the winter months, they are found in southern British Columbia eastwards to New York State and can be found as far south as the Gulf Coast and central Mexico.

There are five subspecies [...]

African Reed Warbler Acrocephalus baeticatus
Marievale Nature Reserve, Gauteng, South Africa. 11 January 2006
 
The African Reed Warbler is common, summer breeding inter-African migrant to Gauteng. The first birds arrive in August, with the main mass of breeding birds arriving in September. After breeding, numbers drop off gradually with most birds having departed by the last week [...]

Heermann’s Gull Larus heermanni
Santa Cruz, California. January 2006
 
One of the most distinctive gulls in North America, Heermann’s Gulls nest mainly in western Mexico (estimates suggest that of the current population of about 150,000 pairs, 90% nest on the island of Isla Rasa, Mexico, with smaller colonies as far north as California). In late May, after [...]

Any broadcast journalist reporting the H5N1 virus - responsible for so-called ‘Bird Flu’ - needs to keep their eyes locked on what they love to call ‘unfolding events’ in case they miss something. Heaven forbid that they should report a half-truth, or broadcast a ‘fact’ that might instead turn out to be ’supposition’ - there [...]

Rufous Turtle Dove Streptopelia orientalis orientalis
Narita-san, Honshu, Japan. 18 January 2006
 
These Rufous Turtle Doves were photographed on a dull, grey day at the Narita-san Temple complex in the town of Narita (1 hour north of Tokyo). Common throughout East Asia and resident in both Japan and South Korea, they belong to the nominate form orientalis, [...]

My sister and I brought Mason to catch the last weekend of the New York Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show. The trains weren’t exactly the attraction, The conceit driving this exhibition was that the trains navigated a variety of notable NYC and Westchester County landmarks created predominantly of plant matter. Visitors could marvel at bridges [...]

Cackling Goose Branta hutchinsii (pres leucopareia)
Vesona Park, Los Gatos, California. January 2006
 
The Canada Goose complex has been usually divided into subspecies along lines of size and color, with larger birds nesting mostly in the south and smaller birds mostly in the north. Lighter colored birds are generally found in the east, and darker ones in [...]

True to form, our unseasonably warm weather snapped just in time for the weekend. Twenty-four hours of torrential rain was followed by twenty-four more of snow, ice, and frigid winds capable of flaying the skin off a hapless birder. But I had to get out anyway. The fact that one person once reported seeing Horned [...]