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“Sweet-sweet-sweet I’m so sweet!” “Sweet-sweet-sweet I’m so sweet!” “Sweet-sweet-sweet I’m so sweet” When you are walking through habitat suitable for Yellow Warblers in late April and throughout May you can be forgiven for thinking that the little yellow birds want you to lick them like a lollipop. They sing hidden behind thick tangles and perched [...]

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.         – Chinese proverb attributed to both Maya Angelou and Lou Holtz   While spring in New York City is great for birders because of the wide variety of colorful migrant birds moving through it is [...]

I’ve been reading Bernd Heinrich’s Summer World lately and was struck by his description of the song of the Red-winged Blackbird as “oog-la-ee.” For some reason I had thought that the universal representation of their song was “Honk-a-ree.” Being a bibliophile I had another bird book in reach, Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion, and [...]

Did you know that today is 2011 World Listening Day, which happens to be the second annual World Listening Day? To be honest, I didn’t but listening has never been my strong suit anyway. Still, the concept in play here has relevance to bird watchers and nature lovers. The purposes of World Listening Day, as [...]

As much as I appreciate the juncos at my feeding station, I’m ready for spring.  I was going over some of my bird lists from 2010 to turn in on eBird (I know, I’m a slacker about turning those in) I found my ears practically salivating for a red-winged blackbird trill.  Then I realized, this [...]

This seems an optimal time to repost last year’s birdPod review for three important reasons: 1. They’ve renamed this wondrous device the birdJam; 2. Spring is the ideal season to invest in such a handy tool for birdsong identification; and 3. I’ve joined their affiliate program and thus will benefit from purchases made through my [...]