I took in quite a few of Oslo’s best localities today in chilly temperatures but without the rain that was forecast and with few new birds. Maridalen had 3 Lapwings in the morning but 6 by the afternoon which were stood on the ice – hopefully these (and more to come) will breed in the […]
Tag: starling
15,354 Days and Counting
As of today, the Ides of March 2017, I saw my first Black-capped Chickadee 15,354 days ago. I’ve seen more than one chickadee on most of those days and over 200 in a single day on a few Christmas Bird Counts. I’m sure I haven’t seen an average of 65 chickadees a day over that […]
Kaziranga explosion
I have a lot of catching up to do, after several wifi-less days in Kaziranga NP, Assam. Our first day in the reserve was incredible. The weather was good, the birds were active and we just saw so many birds. Our guide, Rofikul, did a great job and our daily score was over 170 species! […]
Common Starlings – Jubail
Whilst in the Jubail area recently I saw plenty of Common Starlings Sturnus vulgaris at local camel pens. These camel pens hold good numbers of livestock and attract large numbers of House Sparrows but also a few Common Starlings in the winter. This winter there appear to be more birds than normal possibly as a […]
Eurasian Tree Sparrow in Minnesota
On January 4, 2017, Two Harbors’s wonderful birding guru, Jim Lind, reported on eBird that there was a Eurasian Tree Sparrow hanging out with a flock of House Sparrows right in town. It may have been there earlier than that, because I later read an MOU listserv post by Kim Eckert saying it had first […]
Parti-colored Starling
Only kidding. It’s so cold and rainy outside that I spent most of it sitting in a comfortable chair playing games and some of it creating imaginary birds with Photoshop from my archive of bird images. A Bird Came Down the Walk by Emily Dikinson A bird came down the walk: […]
Birding along the roadside – Bani Saad
Recently I was in Bani Saad and stopped along the roadside at a nice looking area of market garden fields with crops. This area had once held Arabian Golden-winged Grosbeak where birds were seen sitting on a roof in Bani Saad but unfortunately I have never seen them in the built up areas. I did […]
Purple Martins Building a Nest in a Woodpecker Hole in a Dead Snag
The Purple Martin (Progne subis) is a well known and popular bird in eastern North America where it breeds almost entirely in human-made martin houses. Only a few records of natural nestings east of the Rocky Mountains have been reported during the twentieth century1. Here in western North America however, where Purple Martins are less […]