For more than a quarter-century, the dawn and the trees have hardly changed at Bear Swamp. Each June for the past 27 years, which is nearly half my life, I’ve bushwhacked the same route…
Birds in Focus
Regular Northern Woodlands magazine column about birds in the Northeast.
July 5th 2017
Birds in Focus: The Vireo Challenge
Some weighty and persistent questions in the North Woods: Black spruce or red spruce? Green frog or mink frog? Red-eyed vireo or blue-headed vireo? Not that the two vireos look alike. What…
March 29th 2017
Birds in Focus: Drumroll, Please
Trees speak many languages, their leaves whooshing in summer and trunks creaking in winter. At the onset of spring, trees become sounding boards for courtship. Before the thrushes and warblers…
January 13th 2017
Birds in Focus: The Two Kinglets - Not Quite Birds of a Feather
In frigid woods this winter, find yourself a glint of springtime – a spark from the head of a golden crowned kinglet. Smaller than a chickadee but seemingly greater in kinetic energy,…
October 17th 2016
Birds in Focus: Canada Geese
The Canada geese now honking overhead in V-formation, perhaps more than any other birds, exemplify the fall migration. Except when they’re not really migrating, and except when…
June 14th 2016
Birds in Focus: Birds on the Defensive
As a birder for nearly 60 years, I’ve managed to enrage a few nesting birds. Arctic terns in New Brunswick once drew blood from my scalp. Canada geese in Ohio charged and hissed at me.…
March 11th 2016
Birds in Focus: Spring Creepers
Pity the brown creeper. A prisoner of the forest, the creeper seems unable to escape the gravitational pull of the tree trunk on which it creeps, ever upward, gleaning insects, spiders, and…
January 4th 2016
Birds in Focus: A Cross to Bear (on the Bill)
Even among the quirky cast of characters we know as birds, the crossbill is a bit of a freak. It’s hard to decide which is more bizarre: its bill or its breeding behavior. Front and…
October 14th 2015
Common Nighthawks: Two Strikes and a Temporal Mismatch
On a warm August evening at Boston’s Fenway Park, everything had fallen into place by the fifth inning: The Red Sox were beating the Angels 6-0. My pals and I in right field were…
May 28th 2015
Birds in Focus: Finding Refuge in Reference Birds
Pop quiz: Describe a blue jay. Blue with a crest? Okay, but where exactly is the blue on a blue jay? What’s white on a blue jay? What’s black on a blue jay? And what’s…