The cooper’s hawk is about the size of a crow. Immatures are mottled brown on top with brown-streaked creamy breasts and yellow feet. Adults are slate-gray above with reddish barred light breasts and red eyes. They are found year-round in all but the coldest parts of the lower 48 United States. Birdwatchers call them coopies. […]
John James Audubon “was struck with amazement” at the darkened skies caused by the birds. The man who would become famous as an artist of nature was, not surprisingly, himself a naturalist. Yet his efforts to document the flock’s numbers were futile. “The birds poured in in countless multitudes,” Audubon would write. “The air was […]
A swan has been detained in Egypt on suspicion of being a spy. Except it looks – in pictures released by the Egyptian authorities, who kept referring to it as a “swan” – like a stork. Perhaps it was wearing a disguise. The bird, allegedly working for the French government, was captured in a heroic […]
The Japanese (or Black) Wood Pigeon is a species that only inhabits offshore islands or rocky forested headlands. It is usually very shy and keeps to dark forests. There are several subspecies, some of which are critically endangered. They are quite susceptible to any kind of disturbance and also pressures from other pigeons and doves […]
When Doppler radar first arrived in the area known affectionately to Texans as the Hill Country, the local television station meteorologists were understandably eager to show off the weather forecasting capabilities of their newest toy. Unfortunately, they got off to a less than impressive start. Night after night that summer, evening thunderstorms were forecast but […]
A fruit falls to the floor in a rainforest. It waits. And waits. Inside the fruit is a seed, and like most seeds in tropical forests, this one needs an animal—a good-sized animal—to move it to a new place where it can germinate and grow. But it may be waiting in vain. Hunting and poaching […]
Rhawdat Khuraim is an oasis 80 kilometres north west of Riyadh. It proved to be an excellent place for passage birds when visited last spring. So we visited it again, this time obviously in winter to see what it might hold. In many ways it was a bit disappointing. Only two warblers were seen. These […]
Happy New Year to everyone and to all you birders out there I hope you’re 2013 year list has got off to a good start. Mine is so abysmally average I’m not even going to let on! Struggled to get out what with one thing and another … weather mainly, but I did get out […]