Spring’s Cold Brought Bright Birds to Feeders
A colorful array of migrants—brilliant orange orioles, vivid blue buntings, black-white-and-pink grosbeaks—livened up our springtime backyards.
A colorful array of migrants—brilliant orange orioles, vivid blue buntings, black-white-and-pink grosbeaks—livened up our springtime backyards.
Raise the family in a birdhouse or on a branch? Birds have their own ideas about what’s best for their broods.
Bird songs are designed to attract a mate or repel a rival, but birds have other things they need to communicate. Pairs need to stay in contact, flocks confer back and forth and a bird that notices a potential attacker will issue a warning. For these and other purposes birds rely on calls—a repertoire of short, unmusical sounds that convey specific information. Unlike a bird’s song, much of which is learned, bird calls are instinctual, an innate means of communicating.
Spring moves toward us at its own plodding pace, “migrating” northward about 15 miles a day, a measure of the rate at which frost leaves the soil.
My wife and I saw our first horned larks in Wabasha County, in southeastern Minnesota, in March 1988. As best we can recall, we were spending the weekend at a bed and breakfast and took an afternoon to drive around the county looking for birds. Neither of us remembers where we stayed, but we both remember the horned larks. What gorgeous birds!
Freeways are corridor cafes for red-tailed hawks as they perch patiently and wait for a roadside meal.
Nighttime Sleeping Spots
Downy woodpeckers can be heard near and far as they smack their beaks on resonant surfaces to warn or invite.
For many of us, these small, dark sparrows seem to tow winter in their wake.
Take a day trip to view dozens, even hundreds of tundra swans pausing on the Mississippi during migration—but hurry, they’ll soon be gone.