Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation, but what he really aspires to be is a naturalist. Besides founding 10,000 Birds and I and the Bird, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining sites and resources such as Nature Blog Network and Best Birding Tours.

Remember our Evil Avian ID Quiz from last Wednesday? Here is the promised follow-up post and answer.
To review … here were the clues:

Locally common in spring in the Great Plains.
No subspecies.
Worldwide population less than 200,000.
All birds show a distinct whitish eyebrow that, in combination with the darker crown, give them a capped appearance.
Posture is [...]

Autumn is now upon us, isn’t it? Crossing the 42nd latitude yesterday, I saw quite a bit of color in rolling, wooded hills. The first weekend of fall (or spring, depending on your perspective) can be a feast for the eyes. So what are you looking at this weekend and are birds on this itinerary? [...]

Author Stephen Moss speaks to the perils birders might face chasing down the rare and wonderful Basra Reed Warbler, considering that Basra is in Iraq. Nobody said birding was easy… or particularly safe! (hat tip to The Drawn Cutlass)

…besides a lot of time wasted checking my profile, that is!

Yes, I’ve finally taken the plunge and joined Facebook. If you’ve invited me to befriend you in the past and I’ve ignored you, it’s because I’ve studiously avoided all the social networking hoopla. After all, if people wanted to know what I was up to, [...]

One of the most spectacular, important, and envy-inducing birding festivals in North America happens to be the one situated along the Mexican border in South Texas. The Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Harlingen, TX is the real deal, a birding festival by birders for birders with truly breath-taking birds.
If you’ve ever dreamed of attending [...]

Is it summer yet? Oh, technically it’s still summer you say (or winter, depending on your hemisphere!) That’s right, this is the last official weekend of the summer of 2008. It’s also a time when migratory birds are pouring from the poles to the equatorial regions (or vice versa, depending on your heimsphere!) So where [...]

The word landscape possesses great potency because it evokes so many meanings. Originally a simple term for a tract of land, it was eventually annexed by painters whose renditions of enduring physical elements such as mountains, waterways, and vegetation intermixed with ephemera such as lighting and weather to surpassing artistic effect. Thus it is that [...]

Learn something new at Science Made Cool through the 114th edition of Tangled Bank.

Thanks to the good, generous folks at Houghton Mifflin, we had two copies of the exciting new Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America to give away. There was an easy way and a hard way to win. We already announced the winner for the former. Now let’s talk those canny, courageous souls who [...]

Are you all afraid of a tough birding ID challenge? It certainly seems so based on how few of you have taken a shot at our Perceptive Peterson Field Guide Giveaway. You still have until midnight tonight to submit your guesses. There’s more than a free copy of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of [...]

This weekend two-thirds of the 10,000 Birds triumvirate participated in the 12th Annual Montezuma Muckrace. I’m pleased to report that we lived to tell the tale. Corey and I, accompanied by ace birders Jory Langner and Will Raup, ushered in a shining new era of competitive Big Day birding, the debut of the 10,000 Birds [...]

I don’t know how the weather is treating you in your neck of the proverbial woods but it’s getting chilly around here. Warm nights turning cool is a signal that birds are on the move, so you might want to be too. Not only will the activity warm you up but you might find yourself [...]

Roger Tory Peterson commands respect. His legacy is not simply that he made the world a better place but that his works changed, and continue to change individual lives for the better.  We asked you to share your thoughts about the Great Man in our Praiseworthy Peterson Field Guide Giveaway and you responded with just [...]

Crow Kitchen, which may be the world’s first bakery for wild birds, has arrived, ready to bring “all-natural birdie baked goods to America’s songbirds and the people who feed them.” I love the design of their website!

So you want a free copy of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, don’t you? Of course you do. The question is how you can get one. Well, thanks to our friends at Houghton Mifflin, we are giving away two copies of Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America. My question [...]

Alas, poor Winnie! I knew her, Horatio, a Whimbrel of infinite jest…
Winnie the Whimbrel, celebrated shorebird migrant, is lost and presumed to be no more.

When we last left Winnie, she had just set a new distance record in the flight range of Whimbrels, traversing more than 3,200 miles from the Delmarva Peninsula to the McKenzie [...]

Mason and I celebrated International Rock Flipping Day by exploring the undersides of stones in our (relatively) new backyard. All we found were pill bugs. I think I need to mulch…

You’d think that a person’s centennial, even a posthumous one, would be easier. The long-awaited newly revised Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America is released to the avid masses almost 100 years to the day after the Great Man himself was born and yet, the world did not spin off its axis. Humankind [...]

September has arrived and with it, a flood of fall migrants. OK, maybe those are spring migrants on your side of the world. What matters is that creatures are on the move, which gives us all plenty to look at this weekend. Not that you have to restrict yourself to aerial organisms. After all, this [...]

Who doesn’t admire a true Renaissance Man (or Woman), a versatile individual gifted in many and diverse areas? While the term itself evokes thoughts of the original Renaissance Man himself, Leonardo da Vinci, history is rich with — and some would go so far as to say written by — prestigious polymaths of every stripe. [...]