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I’ve been birding for nearly 2/3 of my life and, until this past weekend, I’d never even sniffed a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.  For a long time my inability to find one of the most common members of the devious genus Empidonax was a sore spot with me.  After all, I was a reasonably experienced birder.  I [...]

Empidonax flycatchers… you can’t live with them, you can’t build a complete life list without them. As countless as the stars above have been the brillant birders brought low by these humble homunculi, these tiny little iterations on an undistinguished theme. Such has become the fate of our friend Alberto Lopez, late of Puerto Rico [...]

Some types of birds, such as raptors, waterfowl, and warblers, appeal to both birdwatchers and sane people alike. Members of these avian families are fun to observe at least in part because they appear in a broad array of easily-discernible forms. Given a minute with a field guide, most individuals can separate different types of [...]