I have had two special house guests in the past week. Fly-bys, actually. Birds. Ones I normally don’t see, Last week I had an Eastern Towhee stop by and say hello and then this week, three Cedar Waxwings paid a brief visit. I have been seeing Cedar Waxwings in the last few years, but only passing through. I see them along about now and again in mid-fall. I suppose they migrate through this … [Read more...]

  I saw him out in the driveway early this week, just sitting there as if to say, “What am I doing here?” It was an Eastern Towhee, the first one I’ve ever seen in or near my yard.  Some of my friends in Orange and Louisa have towhees, but we have not been so fortunate. Towhees are members of the sparrow family and are easily the loveliest and most colorful with a cluster of orange, … [Read more...]

  After being a drab olive for six months, my male goldfinches are beginning to put on the Ritz, molting into a new suit of bright gold feathers. I always thought the birds’ feathers changed colors, but they don’t. The birds grow new and entirely differently colored feathers. The goldfinch is the only one in its family to undergo a complete, not a partial molt. Even the females get a … [Read more...]

Introducing…… In the black corner, we have “Rocky” Robin from Woodbrook in Charlottesville, defending his Featherweight title. “Rocky” has a wingspan 12-inches and comes in weighing a trim .17-pounds. In the red corner, fighting out of Hollymead, we have “Kid” Redbreast, a newcomer hoping to nest in the Brewer’s backyard. “The Kid” also weighs .17 pounds, but has a wingspan of 12.2 … [Read more...]

  I looked out the kitchen window and there sat a hawk. A big hawk. Wait, there was another. Two huge Red-tailed hawks were sunning themselves on a limb overlooking our goldfish pond, not thirty feet away. My natural inclination was to step outside and shoo the hawks away, but I noticed some songbirds feeding on the ground in the back of the yard, and they didn’t seemed concerned. Since … [Read more...]

They showed up last week. Five of them. Grackles. Damned grackles. This morning there were a dozen in my yard, in another week there will be fifty. I despise grackles. They bully my songbirds and eat all the food I put out. If there were only a dozen, I could handle that. But they are like the Hordes of Mongolia. They just keep coming and coming and coming. Most of my other birder friends don’t … [Read more...]

  Some take their bird houses down after each spring and store them to save wear and tear. Others wait till spring to put up new houses and some just think about it. No matter, the time to put up birdhouses is right now, and you may be too late. Geese are already pairing off and I have seen some tussles between bluebirds and even cardinals. Robins are poking around, now, looking for … [Read more...]

How would you like to have to eat all your meals upside down? Well, I have bird in my back yard that is just as happy eating a meal upside down as he is straight up. He also eats sideways, crosswise and most in any position on a tree or suet feeder. He is the white-breasted nuthatch, a permanent resident in my yard. I have one suet feeder that is upside down, meaning that birds have to cling … [Read more...]

Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation Darkness stirs and wakes imagination   Or so said the Phantom of the Opera, himself a creature of the night. We humans also have creatures of the night, often in our own backyards, and some we may never see. Like screech owls. This week, my wife Nancy was returning from her very early workout at the gym and when she pulled up in our … [Read more...]

There are two types of cardinals – the spring, summer and fall cardinals and they are beautiful. And then there are the winter cardinals and they are spectacular. I had 4 winter cardinals in my yard during the recent snowstorm. Of the dozens of birds at my various feeders, the winter cardinals simply exploded with beauty. The contrast between the cardinal-red feathers and the fresh, white snow was … [Read more...]