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October 13 found me doing something very unusual, even for me: learning about birds while watching an orchestra. The University of Montana Symphonic Wind Ensemble, to be precise. At a concert called “Winged Messengers”, which included a piece called “Chickadee Symphony” by Craig Naylor. Plenty of composers have been inspired by bird song – it’s [...]

If we can all agree on one thing, it’s that chickadees and tits are terrific birds. Who, after all, doesn’t love a chickadee? Not for nothing did 10,000 Birds readers elect the chickadee as the Most Beloved Backyard Bird of 2008; if we had run elections in other years, chickadees would no doubt have been [...]

There are many tales of a Tufted Titmouse taking hair from humans to use as nest-lining material.  Watching a titmouse take hairs from a human is something I have always longed to see but I never considered how cool it might be to see a titmouse take hair from another creature.  Fortunately, a pair of [...]

or, in this case, a neophobic Blue Tit in a cage is also a neophobic Blue Tit in the wild. Now this, might not sound like anything of particular ground-breaking significance, but in the context of animal personality research, it is a fairly big thing. Whilst working on Scarlet Macaws in Costa Rica, I had [...]

….chickadees?!? Say wha?!? That’s right, friends. It’s Mardi Gras in New Orleans and in the best traditions of this renowned bacchanal, we exhort you, nay beg you to show us your chickadees, titmice, and tits. Everyone loves a chickadee. There’s no denying it. In fact, 10,000 Birds readers voted the chickadee Most Beloved Backyard Bird [...]

While many birders profess to adore avians more or less equally, Valentine’s Day is a good day to acknowledge that some birds are more equal than other. We all have our favorites, certain species that for which we’ll look a little longer, travel a little farther, or treat a little better with blandishments of seed [...]

You had to know that I wouldn’t be able to resist doing this post for long. Great Tits and Blue Tits are common wherever there are trees in Berlin, which is pretty much everywhere. Both the trees and the tits are in courtyards, back yards, parks, and on city streets. The pictures here were taken [...]

Welcome to the first feeder watch! Where birds get free food and you get pictures of them getting it. The first featured feeder is one of the small, clear, plastic, suction-cupped-to-the-window types. It is located on my parents’ dining room picture window. My parents have long fed their feathered friends and lately my father has [...]

Few American birds have the publicity problems of the titmouse. Even though they are numerous, if not downright gregarious throughout most of their range, despite the fact that the Tufted Titmouse is consistently one of the top ten most frequently reported species in the Great Backyard Bird Count, titmice lack the popularity of other common [...]