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If you’ve been writing or reading blogs for the last few years, you’ve witnessed the exponential explosion of micropublishers and likely felt at least a few tremors of the Attention Crash. One might find it easy to imagine there is nothing new under the sun, that the old blogs are the best blogs. Here’s a [...]

This is the best part of the trip This is the trip, the best part I really like – Jim Morrison, The Soft Parade Wow, has it really been five years since the very first edition of I and the Bird? Indeed it has! Even back then, we were a far-flung assemblage of international avian [...]

The power of a group of like-minded individuals working together towards a common goal never ceases to astound me. No, I’m not talking about the blatant (and unsuccessful) efforts of FIFA referees to keep the U.S. team from advancing in the World Cup! I’m speaking instead about the greatest group nature blog on the planet, the Bird Ecology [...]

Nate is great. Readers of his excellent blog know that Nate has a lot to teach us, even beyond the intricacies of avian alcohol preferences. For example, until today, I did not know what a didaktyliaios was: The double-dactyl… consists of one sentence containing forty-four syllables that are distributed over eight lines and fall into two four-line [...]

Of all the multifarious daunting tasks that go into starting a blog, few are as fraught with peril as choosing a name. The figurative roadside of the information superhighway is littered with the wrecks of websites whose titles failed to seize the imagination. Our own corner of the world wide web, the nature blogosphere seems [...]

You do realize we’re in the middle of one of the birdiest months of the year, right? In temperate climes, May means migration. Of this highly relevant fact, Kirk Mona of Twin Cities Naturalist is well aware. Enjoy the trip from Gippsland, Australia north to Point Roberts, Washington in this cool, circumpolar edition of I and [...]

As amazing as this may sound, I and the Bird is headed towards its fifth anniversary edition. Some regular contributors, including two-thirds of the 10,000 Birds team, have been blogging for longer than that. Yet, the bird blogosphere can hardly be considered impenetrable or static. Every year, amazing new voices emerge to wax eloquent on [...]

Life is change. For the most part, naturalists appreciate and even embrace this simple truth. The unpredictable ebbs and flows of our lives matter so much in our own microcosms, but the realization that the world turns anyway can help connect us to other satisfying, enduring truths. For example, we’ll always have birds. Right now, birds [...]

Today may be April Fool’s Day yet I think we can all agree that bird blogging is no laughing matter.  To paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, “Bird blogs is serious… Pete Seeger told me that (hat tip to anyone who gets the reference!) So let us all turn a serious, contemplative eye to our newest edition of [...]

The nature blogging world is full of givers. You know what I mean by that… people who give unstintingly of their time, passion, and expertise. After all, in many ways, blogging is the worst kind of job, one with daily deadlines and correspondence but little to no pay. The benefits can be awesome though! It [...]

We all, from pole to pole, share the same progression of days, weeks, and months that comprise a year. Yet my months in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere play out rather differently from those of my compatriots down below the equator. I only share this as a warning to readers who may not [...]

I and the Bird has really been getting around lately, hopping from one hemisphere to the next with admirable ease and not a moment of jet lag.  Unless you actually examine the list of scheduled hosts, you’ll really have no idea from where in the world our peripatetic publication will be posted next. For example, [...]

Don’t you hate it when you’re forced to recognize you’re not quite as slick or savvy as you thought? I just had that realization thanks to my friend Duncan of Ben Cruachan Blog. You see, back in Dec 2006 I was pretty proud of myself for finally persuading Duncan to host I and the Bird. This [...]

Blog carnivals traditionally place the emphasis squarely on the contributors. The role of the host is to respectfully curate the contributions, adding sufficient panache to their presentation to encourage enthusiastic exploration of all linked posts. But this seems a perfect time to remind readers not to ignore the rest of what a host has to [...]

Being part of an international cabal of inspired bird bloggers can make the world feel like a cozy, congenial community yet every so often, one comes face to face with how HUGE this planet really is. No, I’m not talking about the endless hours you needed to schlep to wherever you spent your yuletide holidays… [...]

Certain developments in this last month lead me to believe we may be entering a Golden Age of nature blog carnivals. Nature bloggers can boast a number of vital carnivals covering a variety of important topics but there have been, until recently, some glaring absences. But Santa came early this December, delivering news of an [...]

We never know where I and the Bird will take us, or who we’ll meet through its travels. For example, IATB is seldom hosted from the Southern Hemisphere and even more rarely hosted by the author of a fantastic field guide. Yet the newest edition of our mighty bird blog carnival has at its helm [...]

Birds serve as an endless source of inspiration, feathered muses that motivate sublime verse (not to mention way too many pre-dawn excursions!) The new release Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds, which Corey recommends highly, offers a sweeping selection of bird poetry and prose. Then again, so does the newest I and [...]

I and the Bird is logging a lot of frequent flyer miles these days. In the past two months alone, we’ve peregrinated from New York to India to New Mexico to Minnesota, some odd geographic choices to be sure. Believe it or not, we’re back to India, courtesy of Thomas of Walk the Wilderness. The [...]

If quality of blog output is any indicator, Minnesota stands out as one of the epicenters of American birding brilliance. The quality and quantity of outstanding nature blogs out of the North Star State never fail to impress. Case in point is Kirk Mona’s Twin Cities Naturalist blog, a consistently creative and enjoyable read. Of [...]