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Before arriving in the town of Copan Ruinas, Honduras, on February 27, 2009, I had only ever heard Inca Doves.  Their melancholy “no hope, no hope” had reached my ears previously only in the town of Brawley at the south end of the Salton Sea in southern California.  So when I realized that the pasture [...]

In my first trip to the West Indies, I learned that the Bahamas boast an impressive array of wild native doves including the Caribbean Dove and White-crowned Pigeon. The various islands also support more adaptable civilized species like Mourning Dove, Common Ground-Dove, and Rock Pigeon. But one columbiform has clearly conquered the rest: in the [...]

How can there be peace when the people who cause war still clamor for the perpetuation of our misery? The arrogance that lives in the government palaces and the houses of the lords of land and big business is still screaming for war and death for our race; they won’t tolerate the idea that indigenous [...]

Maybe Staten Island isn’t all bad. After all, I recently tracked down my first-for-New York State White-winged Dove in the forgotten borough of New York City. The bird has been coming to a private feeder – where a young birder named Anthony Ciancimino happens to live – for well over a week now.  White-winged Doves, [...]

Besides my 3rd grade teacher, I had never encountered a witch before. That is until a recent Nikon’s BATV film trip to Jamaica revealed a unique avian femme fatale, the Crested Quail-dove – also known colloquially as the mountain witch. Widely regarded as the toughest of the 28 Jamaican endemic birds to find, this charismatic [...]

Diamond Doves Geopelia cuneata are the smallest Australian dove and they are ground feeding seed eaters. They need water on a regular basis and as a result of this they may be found in large flocks on occasion at ephemeral lakes, but generally they are just in pairs. Their most distinctive feature is the bright [...]

Like most Northern Hemisphere birders, I’ve been monitoring the signs of spring like a dog watching the driveway for a beloved owner. My ears perk up with every new song, my tail wags (ok, not literally, but darn close) every time I see or hear about a newly-returned migrant. And reports of birds nesting – [...]

It is not every day that you get a phone call alerting you to a bird in your state that has never been in your state before.  But today just that happened when I received a phone call from Jean, a fellow Queens birder, about a Common Ground-Dove being seen well at Captree State Park [...]

Once again I was required by my job to take the two-hour drive west on I-88 to Binghamton, New York. So, foolhardy and obstinate birder that I am, I awoke well before dawn so I could spend some quality time searching for the Eurasian Collared-Dove that had avoided my gaze on my last attempt. I [...]

The Eurasian Collared-Dove is a (surprise!) Eurasian species that was introduced in the Bahamas, spread to Florida, and has slowly but surely expanded its range north and west across the southeastern United States. It is a still-rare visitor to New York but one was reported recently in Port Crane, a small town in New York’s [...]