The Twelve Days of Christmas began as a French secular love song. With an almost seven-foot wingspan and weighing nearly twenty-five pounds, this swan is among the largest of all waterfowl.
And scaup love to eat them. As the winter sun sinks over the Coulee Lakes, hundreds of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches suddenly appear, an undulating cloud that swarms into the upper levels of the basalt cliffs. A recent bonanza of fossils has intensified debate over how contemporary birds are linked to the extinct dinosaurs. And how do songbirds sit on metal perches with no problem? As the winter sun sinks over the Coulee Lakes, hundreds of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches suddenly appear, an undulating cloud that swarms into the upper levels of the basalt cliffs.
Movie-makers love to add bird sounds to a film, to evoke a mood or set a scene.
The Twelve Days of Christmas began as a French secular love song.
Some dabble along the surface, feeding along shallow edges of lakes and estuaries.
And how do songbirds sit on metal perches with no problem? Driving the freeway or a narrow country road, you may glance up to a light pole where a large hawk sits in plain view.
On one of these islands, Mauritius, these sailors were the first Europeans to lay eyes on the odd, flightless bird known as the Dodo.
Sounds painful, if not downright disabling! Except for Northern Pintails.
Put your winter garden to work as a haven for birds.
Is that big black bird a crow or a raven? The Twelve Days of Christmas began as a French secular love song. Merlins, compact birds of prey about ten inches long with a two-foot wingspan, are swift, powerful fliers, true thunderbolts on long, pointed wings. The swallows that make mud nests in spring and catch flying insects all summer are now far south in Mexico, and Central and South America.
The Black Oystercatcher is completely dependent on the marine shoreline for food, even in winter, when waves hit the rocks with awesome force.
They forage mostly during low tide, moving slowly and deliberately through the rocks in search of food. In the Amazon, heat and humidity weigh upon you and a cacophony of birdcalls surrounds you.
Male Northern Shovelers have regained their deep emerald head feathers and rich brown flanks.
A recent bonanza of fossils has intensified debate over how contemporary birds are linked to the extinct dinosaurs.
And if you go, consider hiring a local nature guide. Put your winter garden to work as a haven for birds.
The smallest woodpecker in the United States, it turns up everywhere there are a few trees, except in the dry deserts of the Southwest and in Hawaii.