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While people tend to consider penguins in terms of black and white, every once in a while one of these dapper divers drops the tuxedo for something along the lines of a summer seersucker… White Chinstrap Penguin © David Stephens, Lindblad Expeditions Used with permission Guests and expedition staff aboard Lindblad Expeditions’ National Geographic Explorer were [...]

The typical woodpecker, with its coloration of black, white, and red, is ingrained into our brains as birders.  We all have our familiar species and we all know our local woodpeckers well enough that a quick glimpse is often all we need to identify them.  Because many of our common woodpeckers are such a regular [...]

A recent visit to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge’s East Pond was rewarding in both number and variety of waterfowl, but none drew my attention like one particular Ruddy Duck.  The little stiff-tails are almost year-round at Jamaica Bay though almost all leave to breed in the summer and in the depths of winter, when the [...]

As a native New Yorker, I’ve seen my share of squirrels. Our standard Sciuridae is the Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciuridae carolinensis) and while most of these rambunctious rodents are indeed gray, they sometimes come in other flavors. The Bronx was beset by hordes of Black Squirrels, melanistic members of this common species. So black squirrels [...]