You are browsing the archives of kestrel.

It’s a beautiful day, you’re out birding, and you come across a bird who, instead of perching 20 feet over your head or winging its way past your face, is standing on the ground with its wing askew, wearing a dismayed expression. What do you do? You pick it up (carefully, if it’s a goshawk) [...]

Kestrels may be the coolest raptors nobody knows of. In North America, everyone recognizes hawks on the wing, even the ones that aren’t Red-tailed Hawks. Obviously, Bald Eagles are a pretty big deal too. Those bigger birds of prey command respect, but it’s not like falcons are unknown. Even outside of Atlanta, Peregrine Falcons spend [...]

Gerald Manley Hopkins, Englishman, Catholic convert, priest, and poet, was born in 1844 and died of typhoid fever in 1889.  In between he wrote, taught, and suffered: it seems he was an unhappy man who wrote poems with titles like “I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark.”  Most of his poetry was not published [...]

So, how was your Great Backyard Bird Count? If you live in North America and pay any attention at all to avifauna, you probably did your part over the last four days to advance the cause of citizen science. To be honest, I wasn’t all that excited about the GBBC this year. I strive to [...]

Many a lifelong birder picked up his or her first field guide because of raptors. Bird of prey like eagles, hawks, and owls inspire a level of interest or even passion that most other types of birds can only envy. And as cool as the raptor suite seems to casual observers, it reserves some of [...]