Distinguishing Common and Barrow’s Goldeneyes is always a challenge, and particularly so when the bird is a female. One of the most conspicuous and easily judged differences is bill color – Common Goldeneye has a black bill with a small yellowish patch at the tip, while Barrow’s has the bill almost entirely orange-yellow. This works […]
Identification of (hybrid?) female Goldeneyes Read More »
In 2004 I was working on a small painting of a flying Ferruginous Hawk, and I scanned the work at several stages to show the progression from pencil sketch to finished painting. I created an annotated slideshow from those scans for my 2009-10 exhibit at the Mass Audubon Museum of American Bird Art. Now the
My painting process – gouache Read More »
I’m back to the website after a long holiday break, and I have a few things I’ll be posting over the next two weeks. For now, important news to report is that my seminar at the Yale School of Forestry has been postponed. Originally scheduled for Jan 20th, it will hopefully be rescheduled for the
In a recent post on his excellent blog Earbirding, Nathan Pieplow points out an issue with the voice description of Buff-collared Nightjar in the Sibley Guide to Birds, which says: Song of rapid, sharp, dry chips in crescendoing series tup to to tu tu ti ti trridip accelerating and rising to flourish at end; pattern similar to
Kingbirds, nightjars, and the perception of bird sounds Read More »
On October 9th, 2005 I was enjoying the view at First Encounter Beach in Eastham, Massachusetts and watching a small flight of seabirds. A flock of gulls began to gather on the beach close to my car and I found myself more and more engrossed in the plumage variation of Ring-billed Gulls. This first photo
Variation in immature Ring-billed Gulls Read More »
Thanks to an email from Ray Telfair I’ve taken a closer look at the illustrations and descriptions of hickory nuts on pages 143 to 149 in the Guide to Trees. I used the terms “angled” and “ribbed” interchangeably, and illustrations such as Pignut Hickory p 145 appear “angled”, which is confusing and incorrect, so I’ll try to
Variation in shape of Hickory nuts Read More »
Watching the changing colors of fall leaves is always interesting, and even more so when you recognize the species of trees and begin to understand some of the finer points of variation in color. In these four photographs of Red Maple, all taken within a few days in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, I’ll describe a
Variation in fall color: Red Maple Read More »
Since The Sibley Guide to Birds was published in 2000 I’ve received several comments and questions about the fact that I illustrated the displaying male Ruffed Grouse with a broken tail band (not a solid dark band continuing across the two central tail feathers). Readers note that males are supposed to have complete dark tail bands, while
Variation in Ruffed Grouse tail patterns Read More »
Through this fall I’ve been talking about what I tried to accomplish in my new Guide to Trees. In essence, I tried to approach tree identification in the same way that modern birders approach bird identification, to create “a tree guide for birdwatchers”. Most guides to tree identification use keys at some level, which are
A modern (holistic) approach to Tree Identification Read More »
In fall it is the bright red and yellow colors of the broadleaf trees that get all the attention from “leaf-peepers”. Much more subtle and largely unnoticed are the changing colors of the conifers. Even though pines and cypresses are evergreen, they still drop some of their leaves each fall. This twig of Eastern White
Evergreens have fall color too Read More »