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 »
Have you seen any Field Plovers lately? Blue Nutcrackers? Day Owls? These are all alternate common names of North American birds. Richard Banks has assembled a complete list of outdated English names of North American birds along with the current official names for those species, and it makes a great resource to find out what
Obsolete Bird Names Read More »
This list covers changes (through Nov 2009) to the official names of birds as published by the American Ornithologist’s Union (AOU) in periodic supplements to the AOU checklist. The checklist and all supplements can be found here. Note that the names printed in the Sibley Guides have not been revised. These are the changes that
Updated bird names for The Sibley Guide to Birds Read More »
The following list details corrections made in 2001 in the 4th printing of The Sibley Guide to Birds. If you own a 1st or 3rd printing you can make these corrections to your book. A “quick index” was added to the book in the 4th printing. If you’d like to download a quick index for
Corrections to 4th printing of the Sibley Guide to Birds Read More »
One of my regular birding spots is a small farm field near my house in Concord, Massachusetts. I can walk around the entire place in about 20 minutes, but I usually take about two hours and get in some good sparrow-study. The clump of taller vegetation shown here is always a good spot to study
Probability in bird identification Read More »
Illustration of the Red-footed Falcon perched. The smooth gray color is unlike any North American Falcon. Old juvenal wing and tail feathers are slightly brownish and barred, while adult feathers will be uniform blackish. Juvenal feathers are obvious on the outer tail, the primaries (molt reveals the boldly barred inner web of one outer primary),
Identification of the Martha’s Vineyard Red-footed Falcon Read More »