By Pat Leonard Imagine standing in a marsh at night with the rain pouring down and wind blowing through the tall grass, masking all other sounds. Imagine standing there for 20 minutes and not hearing a single bird. That’s the way Team Redhead’s World Series of Birding began on May 11 at midnight. Despite the [...]
Click image for a larger version. (Right-click to open in a new window if you’d like to have the photo visible while you read the answers below.) The new Crossley ID Guide: Raptors came out in April. Crossley’s innovative technique of cramming lots of photos onto a page seems to work especially well with such large birds [...]
As midnight struck on Thursday, April 25, 2013, the six members of Team Sapsucker made North American history with 294 species recorded in a single day—a new record. Buoyed by good weather, excellent scouting help, and one of the largest migration fallouts in recent memory, they raced from the desert washes of south-central Texas to [...]
Tonight at midnight, the Cornell Lab’s competitive birding team will kick off a 24-hour Big Day in San Antonio, Texas. During every single minute of April 25, 2013, the six members of Team Sapsucker (left) will train their eyes and ears toward finding birds. They’re hoping for 265 species or more to break the North [...]
As Team Sapsucker prepares for their Big Day in Texas, our new BirdCast project is helping pin down the best day of the week for their attempt on the North American record—and its weekly reports can help birders all over North America, too. On a good day, springtime can deliver spectacular birding. But picking that [...]
Living Bird editor Tim Gallagher’s newest book, Imperial Dreams, hit bookstores on Tuesday with its tales of exploring Mexico’s Sierra Madre in pursuit of the largest woodpecker that ever lived. The book has received some great reviews, and Tim will appear on the Diane Rehm show on Thursday, April 25, 2013, to discuss it. Here’s a [...]
(Click image for a larger version) The new Crossley guide hits bookstores this week, bringing Crossley’s unique approach to the task of helping you identify more raptors—whether they’re familiar, unfamiliar, faraway, backlit, immature, adult, light-morph, dark-morph, soaring, hovering, or sitting. With raptors for a subject, this guide concerns itself with far fewer species than [...]
(Click image to enlarge) We were pretty impressed with Richard Crossley’s first bird ID guide when it came out in 2011. So we can’t wait for the next installment: a guide dedicated specifically to raptors, due out in April 2013. Could our excitement have anything to do with his coauthors? Yes it could: they include [...]
By Jason Martin and Robyn Bailey In many parts of North America, handsome male Northern Cardinals are already singing to attract mates. A bird so visible in the winter landscape begs the question, “How does a flame-red bird that nests close to the ground manage to be so common?” Many people puzzle over how this [...]
