Lots of birds have a habit of pumping (or wagging) their tails. It’s mostly open-country birds like phoebes, wagtails and pipits, Palm Warbler, Spotted Sandpiper, and others. Many hypotheses have been suggested to explain why the birds do it, but nobody came up with an answer until Gregory Avellis in 2011. He studied Black Phoebes […]
Why do phoebes pump their tails? Read More »
Cackling Goose is a rare fall migrant through Massachusetts and I usually see a couple of them each fall among the hundreds of Canada Geese around Concord. I look forward to the challenge of sorting through the flocks and picking these birds out, and once a candidate is located the identification has usually been straightforward –
Cackling-ish Geese Read More »
The most significant change for North American birders in the 2013 AOU Checklist supplement is the split of Sage Sparrow into two species: Sagebrush Sparrow and Bell’s Sparrow. In this arrangement Bell’s Sparrow includes the distinctively dark coastal California subspecies belli, as well as the much less distinctive interior California subspecies canescens. Sagebrush Sparrow is
Peter Pyle on Sage Sparrows Read More »
Recently on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Mary Keleher noticed an egret with two long head plumes, and took a couple of photos. This bird matches well with the ones I discussed in 2011 in a previous blog post Little Egrets have been showing up in the northeast regularly enough for the last couple of decades that
Another odd Snowy Egret, or a hybrid? Read More »
Here are some eBird maps showing all records for the month of April for several species of small flycatchers in eastern North America. A glance at these maps will show which species are possible in your area in the next few weeks, and this greatly simplifies flycatcher identification. For most of the east, through most
Flycatcher identification by the calendar Read More »
It’s one of the first things people notice when they get a good look at a Dipper – the eyelid flashes white when it blinks! This is so different from any other bird that it begs for an explanation. Understandably, many people assume that the flashing white eyelid must have something to do with the dipper’s
The white eyelid of American Dipper Read More »
By the end of February, even in cold and snowy Massachusetts, Red-tailed Hawks are courting and forming pairs in preparation for nesting. It’s common to see the male and female of a pair sitting close to each other in a tree, and this provides a very powerful clue to identification. Hawks are generally solitary and
Pairs as an aid to hawk identification Read More »
Backyard Bird Discoveries While watching a small flock of juncos at my bird feeder on December 17, 2012, I noticed one particularly brownish female. Considering subspecies and watching it a little further I noticed that it seemed more active and alert, darting around quickly and holding its body more upright than the other juncos. Could this
Posture and shape distinguishes male and female Dark-eyed Juncos Read More »
Almost every Rusty Blackbird that I see in the eastern United States is in flight, so the simple trick is to look up. In order to do that you need to know what to look for: I use sound to know when to look, then look for flying blackbirds that are solitary or in small
My trick to finding Rusty Blackbirds Read More »
