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Beauty can be found in the most commonplace. I was struck the other day by the perfect patterns created by a preening Mallard. Appreciation of the ordinary in a new light can be as fulfilling as a many a birding experience. Each feather was attended with care by the drake and each fell back perfectly into its [...]

Penguins. The birds that wear tuxedos and star in major motion pictures. People call them “flightless birds” but they do in fact fly; They just do it underwater. They are almost totally restricted to the southern hemisphere (but some live very close to the equator). They eat only seafood, including fish, squid, krill and other [...]

Feathers are the unique ingredient when it comes to birds.  Platypus have bills, bats and bugs can fly, and reptiles lay eggs, but only birds have feathers.  Despite feathers being such a large and essential aspect of birdness I did not know much about them, at least until I read Feathers: The Evolution of a [...]

After work on Tuesday Daisy and I headed over to Papscanee Island for a snerklefork (our much better term for “picnic”) in the remaining hours of daylight (how great is this whole early daylight savings time thing?). The thick snow that blanketed the ground on my last visit was greatly reduced, which made the walking [...]