All Posts

Almost every person I pass along the path after an afternoon of birding in Central Florida has the same question: “Are there any spoonbills out today?” I have good news to share. Dozens of these glorious birds are not only visible across the marshes, but they’re at the height of ...
Read More

A Great Egret, its eyes turned a lime-green in the mating season. One of the most striking springtime transformations among birds is the Great Egret’s. Its eyes turn a lime-green and feathers develop exotic strands of white that blow in the wind like the finest wedding dress. Our swing through ...
Read More

We’ve always been drawn to Pileated Woodpeckers. Who can resist these magnificent birds, with their high-pitched yodel, two-foot wingspan and bright red crests set against more than a foot of jet-black plumage? The male Pileated outside its nest. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal. So when two of these woodpeckers showed up ...
Read More

If you see a Reddish Egret in the shallows of a marsh, just pause for a bit because you’re likely to see an exotic performance. With wings arched over its head, the bird leaps into the air then rushes sideways through the water. The choreography of crisscrossing feet is worthy ...
Read More

KNOTTS ISLAND, N.C. — Suddenly the steady honking and squawking from this gaggle of Snow Geese shifts to a higher pitch, and one of nature’s great performances begins. First just a few, then dozens, and finally hundreds of the bright white birds begin to rise up from a brackish pond ...
Read More

Flying Lessons Postcard Twitter Celebrating the Wild Turkey We take a moment this week to honor the wild turkey, a magnificent bird that is barely recognizable from its domestic cousin on our Thanksgiving Day table.  Every year in late November, we like to share a few facts about this bird ...
Read More

We’ve discovered that almost no matter where you are, hummingbirds will find a newly hung feeder in a matter of days, if not hours. So when we set up camp in upstate New York just as the fall migration was taking off, we assumed we could count on thirsty visitors ...
Read More

Mashpi, Ecuador We’ve spent so many hours chasing hummingbirds over the years that I was caught by surprise when one of these tiny birds turned the tables and landed on my outstretched hand. Light as a penny at about three grams, this curious little creature felt like nothing more than ...
Read More

Only when we slowed the video way down and then blew it up could we see the ferocity of the encounter: The male Ruby-throated Hummingbird hovered above its competitor, then slammed bill-first into the female like a tiny gladiator. The clash sent the two tumbling into the air. (See the ...
Read More

Most of the time, tree swallows move so astoundingly fast it’s hard to see anything but a blur. They’re in such constant motion they rarely stop long enough to offer more than a glimpse of their deep blue-and-white plumage that looks like a tiny tuxedo. A Tree Swallow comes in ...
Read More

Here’s a delicious fact about Cedar Waxwings: They can strip a tree of its berries in such a rush the juice turns to wine and they get too buzzed to fly. Robert Rice, a veteran bird scientist who spent his career with the Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center, explained what happens: ...
Read More

For almost an hour, I decided I had a new favorite bird. It was a blend of bright yellow and black with a little yellow toupee on its head and deep blue wings. This was an Orange-bellied Euphonia, and a member of the tanager family. Orange-bellied Euphonia. Photos by Anders ...
Read More

Mashpi, Ecuador We’ve spent so many hours chasing hummingbirds over the years that I was caught by surprise when one of these tiny birds turned the tables and landed on my outstretched hand. Light as a penny at about three grams, this curious little creature felt like nothing more than ...
Read More

On our way home from traveling 15,000 miles chasing birds all across the country, we stopped at a park in downtown Pittsburgh and came across the broadest collection of birds we’d seen anywhere in one place. It was the National Aviary, which could be called the international aviary. Hundreds of ...
Read More

Two male Pileated Woodpeckers battle for supremacy. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal We heard the clamor from our woodpecker’s nest and instantly knew something was up. The bird’s usual call was replaced with a high-pitched, staccato screech and both the male and female birds leaped around their tree as if the ...
Read More

Most of the time, tree swallows move so astoundingly fast it’s hard to see anything but a blur. They’re in such constant motion they rarely stop long enough to offer more than a glimpse of their deep blue-and-white plumage that looks like a tiny tuxedo. A Tree Swallow comes in ...
Read More

KNOTTS ISLAND, N.C. — Suddenly the steady honking and squawking from this gaggle of Snow Geese shifts to a higher pitch, and one of nature’s great performances begins. First just a few, then dozens, and finally hundreds of the bright white birds begin to rise up from a brackish pond ...
Read More

The app’s home screen I’m just addicted to the Merlin app’s new Sound ID feature. Whenever I’m outside, walking my daily 10,000 steps or sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee, I hit the green button to see who’s out there singing. I’ve struggled for years just to ...
Read More

Most of the time, tree swallows move so astoundingly fast it’s hard to see anything but a blur. They’re in such constant motion they rarely stop long enough to offer more than a glimpse of their deep blue-and-white plumage that looks like a tiny tuxedo. A Tree Swallow comes in ...
Read More

Maybe it was because we’d been cooped up for much of the past year, but traveling the country this summer, we were swept away whenever we spotted birds and flowers together. It was like we were seeing them for the first time. Birds and flowers have a longstanding relationship – ...
Read More

One of the birds we most hoped to see in our travels in the West was the California Condor, the continent’s largest bird with an inspiring comeback story. The condor is majestic and also kind of odd, with a wingspan of almost 10 feet and a huge body covered with ...
Read More

Greetings from Yellowstone National Park, where Anders and I have just passed the 10,000-mile mark on a cross-country birding safari we started almost six months ago. Our quest to find some of the most fascinating birds in the hemisphere has taken us across bayous and rice fields in Louisiana; to ...
Read More

One of the most useful skills for birders is learning to recognize birdsongs by ear. Just when you think you’ve heard a Robin, a bright red bird shows up instead. It’s a Summer Tanager, often described as a Robin with a sore throat. And what about those cute little nuthatches? ...
Read More

The most memorable encounter we had on a recent visit to the San Diego Zoo wasn’t the Golden Eagle, Andean Condor or even the African Lion that delivered a ferocious roar just as we walked up. It was a Hooded Oriole that hung around us singing throughout our lunch stop ...
Read More

If you see a Reddish Egret in the shallows of a marsh, just pause for a bit because you’re about to witness an exotic performance. With wings arched over its head, the bird leaps into the air then rushes sideways through the water. The choreography of crisscrossing feet is worthy ...
Read More

Prothonotary Warbler Beverly’s favorite birds have always been warblers — the feisty, colorful world travelers that are among the hardest species to find. They’re shy, skittish and can move so quickly they’re often gone before you get a good look. Last week was Beverly’s birthday, which just happened to fall ...
Read More

With migration in full swing and the birds at their loudest, this is the time of year you’re most likely to run into an unfamiliar song. We’ve pulled out our most popular post of the year as a guide to the slew of birdsong ID apps on the market. For ...
Read More

Finally, we’re heading out on a trip that’s been years in the making. After spending a couple of months in our favorite winter camping spot, an Airstream park in Central Florida, the time has come to hitch up the Flying Cloud once again and move west. Over the next four ...
Read More

Two male Pileated Woodpeckers battle for supremacy. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal We heard the clamor from our woodpecker’s nest and instantly knew something was up. The bird’s usual call was replaced with a high-pitched, staccato screech and both the male and female birds leaped around their tree as if the ...
Read More

We’ve always been drawn to Pileated Woodpeckers. Who can resist these magnificent birds, with their striking yodel, two-foot wingspan and bright red crests set against more than a foot of jet-black plumage? The male Pileated outside its nest. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal. So when two of these woodpeckers showed up ...
Read More

Blue-crowned Pigeon SCOTLAND NECK, N.C. — It was well into winter, and after weeks of grim headlines and overcast skies, I decided the only cure for a badly bruised equilibrium was a flock of flying things with amazing feathers. The drab sparrows and robins outside our windows just weren’t doing ...
Read More

KNOTTS ISLAND, N.C. — Suddenly the steady honking and squawking from this gaggle of Snow Geese shifts to a higher pitch, and one of nature’s great performances begins. First just a few, then dozens, and finally hundreds of the bright white birds begin to rise up from a brackish pond ...
Read More

It’s official. Birding’s cool factor is off the charts. And a certain bird nerd, one who has endured an abundance of ridicule and eye rolling from her offspring, is feeling fairly smug. Birding’s coolness is nothing short of a miracle, and here’s how it happened: In March national headlines started ...
Read More

The future of hi-tech birding arrived in a small FedEx package the other day. It was a delivery we’d been looking forward to for months, so we went right to work. The Haikubox, which stands about a foot tall, records songs and calls and immediately identifies the bird species. Within ...
Read More

It’s not the best time to go birding in many places, but it is the perfect time to plan how we can become betters birders in the year ahead. Over the last year, as thousands of newcomers found their way to birding amid the pandemic, we developed a series of ...
Read More

We’re winding up the year sharing the most popular — and we hope most compelling — Flying Lesson stories from 2020. Most of the posts are profiles of bird encounters, including this story, photos and video of the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds we spent time with this summer. Only when we slowed ...
Read More

Flying Lessons Postcard Facebook-f A favorite woodpecker in holiday pose We saved our best yuletide photo for the height of the holidays. We’ve always wanted to make a Christmas card with this scene of a magnificent Pileated Woodpecker picking bright red berries, as if gathering them for a wreath. We ...
Read More

After years of yearning for a technology that can identify birds by their songs, birders are now awash in apps and services that promise to tell you what species you just heard. And in fact, the best of more than a half dozen smartphone apps do a pretty good job ...
Read More

We’re winding up the year sharing the most popular — and we hope most compelling — Flying Lesson stories from 2020. Most of the posts are profiles of bird encounters, including this story of a Prothonotary Warbler we crossed paths with for a visit we still treasure. We’re posting one ...
Read More

The reddest bird of all The Summer Tanager stands out for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that the male is the only completely red bird in North America. This time of year, that earns him a place in this yuletide gallery devoted to our favorite holiday ...
Read More