You are browsing the archives of 2006 March.

Dark-throated Thrush Turdus ruficollis atrogularis
Swansea, Wales. 04 March 2006
 
I’m a huge fan of thrushes - I can’t really explain why, but perhaps it’s because they’re such creatures of contrast: subtle tones but often beautifully patterned, a reassuringly solid build but ghost-like in a forest, expert songsters but often silent, superb migrants that cover vast distances [...]

Our inspirational bird quote for the month of March comes from a Johann Wolfgang von Goethe poem entitled fittingly and succinctly March. Goethe’s most popular piece, Faust, is a great work of genius, no surprise as it is the work of a great genius. I had no idea that the renowned, supremely influential German novelist [...]

I’ve stayed out of the “rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker” arguments since they started with the announcement almost a year ago that one had been seen in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas, but - having just spent a week in the US with two prominent bloggers and discussed the issue with them [...]

The weather has been bitter lately and, frankly, I’m not in the mood for it. As a result, I stayed close to home this weekend with no birding on the itinerary. Bronx birds are good enough at times like these. Besides the trash bird triumvirate (pigeons, starlings, and house sparrows) plenty of fun species frequent [...]

Today is the international celebration of Masemas, the birthdate of our beloved Mason Hopkins Bergin. What a kid!

Despite my own incredible love for the lad, I have to admit that I’m quite taken aback at how quickly observance of Mason’s birthday has spread. He’s only two, but throughout the United States, millions of people are [...]

 
Eurasian Penduline Tit Remiz pendulinus pendulinus
Karrendorfer Wiesen, Vorpommern, NE Germany, March 2006
 
The Eurasian Penduline Tit Remiz pendulinus is not a tit (Paridae) but one of thirteen members of the Remidae, a family ranging right across Eurasia (Remiz and Cephalopyrus), throughout Africa (Anthoscopus and Pholidornis), and - if current thinking is followed - is represented [...]

The last time I visited Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Basking Ridge, NJ, mere days after I started this site, I stated that tales of the swamp’s greatness were somewhat exaggerated. I’ve just been again, and the verdict is improving, but still not quite great.
Perhaps the swamp isn’t entirely to blame. After all, I [...]

Great Swamp National Wildlife RefugeNew Jersey, USA
12 March 2006
 

Near Middle Brook, Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
 
I’m back in New Jersey for the second time this year. The first time (six weeks ago) it snowed - great bucketfuls of the stuff tearing in on a howling wind - and this time it’s raining. It’s a bit [...]

American Tree Sparrow Spizella arborea
Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey, March 2006
 
Unlike many North American sparrows which winter mainly south of the US/Mexican border, the American Tree Sparrow is a common winter visitor in backyards all across southern Canada and the northern United States. The birds photographed below will soon be moving north [...]

Apart from the first frenzied hours of my arrival in Oakland, birding was restricted primarily to those species eking out a living in my hotel’s foliage. Not that I tired of my spare minutes with the same old scrub-jays, ruby-crowns, yellow-rumps, crows, gulls, Anna’s Hummingbirds, Black Phoebes, and Brewer’s Blackbirds …it’s just that I wasn’t [...]