Brooklyn’s Prospect Park covers more than 500 acres — many of them covered in trees. One bird species that calls the park home is the strikingly beautiful Blue Jay, which nests, forages, and roosts in trees. In the eastern U.S., you can invite Blue Jays into a small yard with just a decent…

Prospect Park, en Brooklyn, abarca más de 200 hectáreas –en su mayoría cubiertas de árboles. Una especie de ave que vive en este parque es la bellísima chara azul ( Cyanocitta cristata), que anida, busca alimento y duerme en los árboles. En el este de los Estados Unidos, puedes invitar a…

At the close of a summer day, the songbirds go silent. As if on cue, the birds of the night make their voices known. In an Eastern woodland, the eerie trills and whinnies of an Eastern Screech-Owl are among the first sounds of the night. Meanwhile, as night falls west of the Rockies, a…

The Ross’s Gull is a dainty seabird that’s rarely found south of the High Arctic. Though their bodies are mostly gray, their breast feathers and underparts glow a satiny pink thanks to pigments from the marine crustaceans they pluck from the ocean’s surface. Every so often, a Ross’s Gull…

By August, many birds have just completed the intense rigors of nesting and raising young and now undergo a complete molt. Molt is a cyclic process of feather growth. As new feathers grow in, they push the old ones out. Why molt? Because feathers wear out. Songbirds that migrate long…

Some believe the song of the Wood Thrush to be the most beautiful bird song in North America. Others select the song of the Hermit Thrush. Still others name the singing of the Swainson’s Thrush. How do thrushes like this Veery create such fine music? The answer is that the birds have a…

Algunos consideran que el canto del zorzal moteado ( Hylocichla mustelina) es el más hermoso de América del Norte. Otros escogen el canto del zorzal cola canela ( Catharus guttatus). Y hay quienes prefieren el canto del zorzal de anteojos ( Catharus ustulatus). ¿Cómo logran estos zorzales…

Canyons, whether large or small, can host a spectacular variety of birds! Consider Swakane Canyon, in central Washington State. It cuts west from the Columbia River into the Entiat Mountains for nine miles, while gaining nearly 3,000 feet. Steep slopes wall in the canyon floor, several…

In the rural Southeast, roadside ditches – known as “bar ditches” – carry on for miles. The term bar ditch probably comes from their construction, when dirt was "borrowed" to build up the road. The ditches are full of water and full of life, these narrow wetlands. Herons stalk the shallow…

Silbando mientras vuelan, los pijijes alas blanca ( Dendrocygna autumnalis) – o patos silbones de ala blanca – son aves acuáticas espectaculares, con picos y patas de color rosa brillante, cuello y lomo castaños, y partes inferiores negras. Aunque la mayoría de los patos silbadores viven…