The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSOB) has proclaimed Oct 24 as Feed The Birds Day. It serves as a reminder of all the things we can do to help the birds through the coming winter. We’re pretty good at providing fast food for birds and this is …
Fall migration is such a wonderful time for bird watchers. Not only do we have a variety of adult birds moving through, we have the added challenge of trying to identify juveniles. For the past couple of weeks, I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to identify the …
Today is Blog Action Day, with the focus on climate change and global warming. As I sat down to write this article, I glanced out my window and sighed. A very early snowfall has covered the ground, and record low temperatures have frozen the green leaves on the trees. Hardly …
It’s a miserable, dark, snowy day here in Calgary. I was enjoying my book and a cup of tea when my corvid alarm went off. As any birdwatcher knows, a flock of screaming crows, magpies and jays generally means there’s an owl in the vicinity. I grabbed my binoculars & …
Hearing ranks next to sight in its importance to birds and their survival. The ear openings of birds are hidden under feathers, called auriculars, on the sides of the head. There is no cartilaginous outer ear as found in humans and other mammals. Birds are highly social animals, and depend …
I am definitely a fan of sit birding. You find a nice birdy location – say the edge of a marsh or along a riverbank – and then (here’s where it gets technical) you sit. As in down. Get comfy. Sit in your carefully chosen perfect location and wait for …
The most important act that a bird performs in the preening of its feathers. They begin by grasping with their bill, one feather at the base and nibbling towards the tip to remove oil, dirt and parasites. Or they may just simply draw the feather through the partially clamped bill …
I love it when owls throw up on me. One winter day when I was walking my dogs in a thickly wooded area, I sat down for a rest on a fallen log. As the dogs sniffed their way around the area, something fell from the sky and dropped into …
Birds have the best colour vision of all vertebrates. Some species even see ultra-violet light, which means they are able to pick up highlights and tones in plumage unseen by the human eye. Raptors, whose survival depends on hunting, have eyesight two to three times better than humans. Each image …
This is the fifth in a series of posts on birds at risk in Canada. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) lists 73 bird species as endangered, threatened or of special concern. It seems inconceivable that a member of the blackbird family could be listed …