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posted May 1st, 2012; last edited May 1st, 2012 –– David Sibley Molt is the process of feather replacement. All birds do it; they have to grow new feathers once or twice a year to stay warm, dry, and airborne, and in many cases they grow differently colored feathers at different seasons to match their surroundings or to impress others of their species. Among the small [...] posted April 16th, 2012; last edited April 16th, 2012 –– David Sibley I was musing on the value of learning bird topography this morning, wondering why it is so important to know the greater coverts and supercilium and all the rest. The easy answer is that it gives us a framework to describe the color patterns of birds, but I think there’s even more to it than [...] posted April 6th, 2012; last edited April 6th, 2012 –– David Sibley Update: Congratulations to Alvan, the winner of the Backyard Birds poster. Thanks to all who took the quiz and entered. The response was fantastic, and keep watching for another prize giveaway in the near future. Today’s quiz introduces a new feature – a prize! If you get all three questions correct, be sure [...] posted April 5th, 2012; last edited April 5th, 2012 –– David Sibley With thanks to the online wing collection of the Slater Museum of Natural History, University of Puget Sound for allowing the use of their wing photos. With thanks, again, to Brian E. Small for providing the beautiful photos. You can see lots more at his website, and clicking any of his [...] posted April 4th, 2012; last edited April 4th, 2012 –– David Sibley With thanks to the online wing collection of the Slater Museum of Natural History, University of Puget Sound for allowing the use of their wing photos. With thanks, again, to Brian E. Small for providing the beautiful photos. You can see lots more at his website, and clicking any of his [...] posted April 3rd, 2012; last edited April 3rd, 2012 –– David Sibley With thanks to the online wing collection of the Slater Museum of Natural History, University of Puget Sound for allowing the use of their wing photos. With thanks, again, to Brian E. Small for providing the beautiful photos. You can see lots more at his website, and clicking any of his [...] posted March 13th, 2012; last edited March 8th, 2012 –– David Sibley Here is a quiz with three very different wings, and a detailed explanation follows (don’t peek). With thanks to the online wing collection of the Slater Museum of Natural History, University of Puget Sound for allowing the use of these photos. [...] posted March 10th, 2012; last edited March 10th, 2012 –– David Sibley Most birds have a very different pattern on the upperside and underside of their wings. On the coverts (the leading edge of the wing) this is easily explained because we are looking at entirely different feathers above and below. On the primaries and secondaries, however, there is just a single layer of feathers. How can [...] posted March 8th, 2012; last edited March 8th, 2012 –– David Sibley Wings are amazing. Marvels of engineering, with intricate and changeable color patterns, they offer endless avenues for study. But seeing the details of a wing in the field can be extremely difficult. Feathers are constantly shifting across each other, the wings are moving up and down, in and out, and the bird is usually traveling [...] posted March 7th, 2012; last edited March 7th, 2012 –– David Sibley The feathers along the side of the lower jaw have a very confusing history of terminology. They’ve been called the malar stripe (in many early and mid 20th century bird books), the submoustachial1 stripe (in most bird guides published in the 1980s and later), and the malar again (in my Sibley Guide to Birds).
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