Tag: birds
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A Natural History of Trail Ridge Road Is Now Out
I am delighted to announce that my book, A Natural History of Trail Ridge Road: Rocky Mountain National Park’s Highway to the Sky, is now in bookstores. I’d love to see you at a book signing. Please check this blog frequently for times and places of signings, because they do change. 2:00 May 16, 2015…
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Spring is coming. Really.
If we can just hold on a little longer, spring is coming. How do I know? Robins, dark-eyed juncos and rufus-sided towhees are back at the feeders. Also, as I was walking into to library this morning, I heard a crow making a weird ringing “B’Dong! B’Dong! B’Dong! B’Dong!” call. It drew a crowd as…
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Eyelashes and Hummingbird Tongues
I learned some new things about hummingbirds this week. First, I learned that for years now, I have had two types of hummingbirds coming to my feeders. I knew that I had broad-tailed hummers — they are the most common hummingbirds in the Western US. With a flashy red throat “gorget” and a metallic ringing…
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Spotted Towhee
I love to wake up to the sound of birds singing. The “twup tewerp” of robins, the trills of house finches, the hyena-like call of Northern flickers. But in the past few years, I’ve started to hear a new sound in the mornings: “Cha cha cha che e e e ! Cha cha cha che…
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Birds have just moved a bit
Earlier this winter, I wrote a blog about how we had had seen a dramatic decline in the number of birds we see at our feeder. (http://coloradogeography.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/where-have-all-the-birds-gone/) When I emailed Hugh Kingery, of the Audubon Society of Greater Denver, he said that a lot of people had been mentioning the same lack of birds. People…
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Mourning Doves bullied by newcomer Eurasian Collared Doves
There was a good article in the Denver Post this morning on how Eurasian Collared Doves have moved into every county in Colorado. http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25219440/invasive-doves-colonize-colorado-and-overshadow-good-doves Although they make a nasal honking sound, Collared Doves are beautiful birds. The problem is that they seem to be competing with native Mourning Doves. (By the way, in Natural Resources/Ecology…
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Where have all the birds gone?
Look at this picture. Look at it closely. Count the number of birds in it. How many did you find? If you counted zero, nada, zilch, you are not alone. Since before Thanksgiving, I have seen very few birds at our feeders. In an email to Hugh Kingery, of the Audubon Society of Greater Denver,…
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Angry bird’s feathers ruffled.
We had an angry young raven visit the backyard earlier this week. I don’t know what had annoyed it so much, but it was not happy. Actually, I suspect that the bird had just been put in its place by another raven that was perched in another tree a few houses down from ours. Crows…
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Thanksgiving Dinner
There are two animals in this picture. Can you find them? The first is relatively obvious. The second may take some searching. There are two creatures in this tree. Can you find them both? I took this photo on Thanksgiving Day. I noticed the hawk in the tree as we were getting our own dinner…
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Some loose, some win.
This is the time of year when the sun gets low in the horizon. The change in light must make our windows appear clear to birds visiting our feeders. One of the visitors has learned to take advantage of this problem. We have all sorts of birds come to our feeders — house sparrows, finches,…
Amy Law, Science Geek 