Yee-haw! The New York Football Giants have won the Super Bowl for the second time in 4 years. Not too shabby! Not only does my football team end up on top, but now I get my Sundays back! This weekend, however, I didn’t see any special birds, unless you count the bird M.I.A. flipped during [...]

The first weekend of February holds a special place in the hearts of sports fans and advertising aficionados across North America and beyond.  Super Bowl Sunday is among my favorite holidays, and this one means more than most as my favorite team is gunning for the NFL Championship. Let’s hear your predictions, people: Who will win [...]

Do you get out birding much? If you’re checking in here on a Monday morning, chances are you have a bird tale to tell. Then again, maybe like me you simply enjoy hearing about the avian observations of others even when you can’t make time for your own bird chases. Speaking of Birdchasers, Rob Fergus [...]

At this moment, 3,000 people like 10,000 Birds on Facebook. Not bad for a birding blog! This seems like an excellent opportunity for us to let you know how grateful we are that you’re sharing this collective journey of discovery and adventure with us. Thank you!

One of the sweetest subsections of the duck family has to be the sawbills, formally known as mergansers. Mergansers are a family of diving waterfowl in Merginae, the seaduck subfamily of Anatidae. Ironically, only one of these seaducks is truly a seafarer, the others favoring rivers and lakes. The name ‘merganser’ is said to have [...]

This may read like something of a non sequitur, but have you ever seen a Rainbow Eucalyptus? Eucalyptus deglupta is a psychedelic beauty, with stunning, striated bark that spans nearly every color of the rainbow. Take a moment to check out how trippy this tree is. When you’re done, come back and we’ll talk birds. [...]

You may already know about this, but I was not aware that a pure white Blackbird (the thrush, not the icterid) can be found at Rufford Abbey Country Park in Nottinghamshire, UK. In fact, this leucistic lovely (check out the pic) has resided at the park for the last four years. Thanks to reader Sher Buckner [...]

Are we going to talk birds here or discuss how awesome it is that the NY Giants are going to the Super Bowl? Oh, birds? I should have guessed that. Big Blue fans can leave proud comments and hyperbolic predictions in the comments! My Best Bird of the Weekend™  was a Blue Jay celebrating a rare Rochester [...]

We know how much everyone here loves James Currie’s blogging, not to mention a little something called Nikon’s Birding Adventures TV. So don’t you think his new program Aerial Assassins featuring Harris’s Hawks is going to be awesome? Show your support for awesome nature programming by watching tonight January 20 on National Geographic WILD. (As a bonus, [...]

So here we are in the latter half of the first month of the year, and I’ve run out of things to talk about. Not really, but I’m trying to avoid talking about the weather. Are you really into small talk anyway? What’s your sign? Enough chit chat! Regarding the critical topic of birding and [...]

What a splendid weekend! With superb American playoff football all weekend long, I hardly noticed the bitter arrival of authentic winter weather or the apparent absence of non-corvid avifauna in my immediate vicinity. But who cares, right? As a Giant fan, I enjoyed my fill of meaningless entertainment this weekend. Oh, you’d rather talk about [...]

At approximately 9am on January 13, an avian act of violence occurred in a suburban backyard in eastern North America. Who was the predator and who was the prey? The following photo is your only piece of evidence beyond date, time, and location. Leave your guesses in the comments section. The first person to correctly [...]

Three weekends into this new year, I still can’t make sense of it. If you live in the northeastern United States, you may be wondering if you’ll ever see winter again. If you live along the coast of Alaska’s Prince William Sound, on the other hand, you may wonder if you’ll make it to spring! [...]

While people tend to consider penguins in terms of black and white, every once in a while one of these dapper divers drops the tuxedo for something along the lines of a summer seersucker… White Chinstrap Penguin © David Stephens, Lindblad Expeditions Used with permission Guests and expedition staff aboard Lindblad Expeditions’ National Geographic Explorer were [...]

Researchers at Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama conducting a two-year study focusing on the diets of Tiger Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico have made an alarming discovery: not only are these sharks eating the expected fish and other assorted marine organisms, but they’re also eating land-based songbirds! ABC reports that the sharks are [...]

Just two weekends into 2012, I already love this year. No doubt the weather has something to do with it; Rochester, NY may historically be one of the United States’ snowiest metropolitan areas, but we’ve been basking in almost vernal weather. Plus my New York Football Giants just advanced in the first round of the NFL playoffs. [...]

Anyone who dares fill bird feeders in the hopes of actually, you know, feeding birds knows well the menace hungry squirrels present. Entire industries are built around preventing squirrels from completely devouring provisions intended for birds. The bird feeder arms race demands incessant innovation because of the utter fearlessness and abandon driving squirrels to plunder [...]

Coming into the second weekend of this new year, we’ve all added a few birds — possibly very few birds — to our year lists. Don’t feel obliged to start a formal list if listing isn’t your style. I gave up year listing a couple of annums back even though I’ve rung up some banner [...]

This morning on Google+, I shared a charming video of an octopus stealing a diver’s camera with the comment, “This never happens to birdwatchers!” Apparently I spoke too soon. Lars Fosdal replied with a June 2011 video of a gull in Cannes stealing a camera and flying away with it.  Think either video is staged?

Happy New Year! I’m feeling pretty good about 2012 so far. Not only am I suffused with the pleasant warmth that comes with watching one’s favorite sports team clinch the playoffs, but I also managed to shake off a scant night’s sleep to chase some birds this morning. How about you? My best bird of [...]