A Tufted Titmouse has just about everything you could ask for in a backyard bird. Petite and strikingly elegant, it’s as perky as a chickadee. In fact, it’s a cousin to the chickadee. And as it comes boldly to your seed or suet feeders, the Tufted Titmouse will even hang upside down like…

Red-tailed Hawks are found year ‘round in a wide variety of natural landscapes, from meadows to forest edges, deserts, and canyons. One big reason we see Red-tailed Hawks in so many places is their remarkable adaptability as hunters. They vary their diet to what is locally abundant. So…

The dense cover of coastal chaparral supports many birds found nowhere else in the world, including this California Thrasher. The plant species are different, but the chaparral of California is much like shrubby coastal vegetation in southern Europe, South Africa, southern Australia, and…

Almost half of all migratory shorebirds nesting in North America migrate through the Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area in central Kansas. Almost all of the continent's Wilson's Phalaropes rest and refuel at the wetlands here. The birds fly a great oval route. In autumn, in the East, they head…

In the mid-1990s, a golden age of fossil discovery began in the Liaoning region of northeast China. The fossils date from 120 to 160 million years ago, when feathered dinosaurs and early birds were flourishing and differentiating. The signature fossil was the world’s first-known feathered…

In May, we celebrate migratory birds, including this Common Yellowthroat. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 gave much needed protection to birds, especially migratory songbirds. In 1940, the US and 17 other countries throughout the Americas signed a pact to "protect and preserve - in…

The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is one of North America’s tiniest songbirds. At just four inches long and weighing less than a quarter of an ounce, it’s affectionately known as “Little Rickie,” based on the official four-letter code: RCKI. But the tiny bird has a big voice—the male sings a loud…

The sapsucker is a type of woodpecker that notches rows of small holes in trees, causing sap to well out. The birds eat the sugary liquid flowing from these sapwells. Tree sap is similar in sugar content to the nectar hummingbirds take from flowers. And it is no coincidence that just as…

Of all American presidents, just one might have halted the playing of “Hail to the Chief” so he could listen to an Orchard Oriole singing — Theodore Roosevelt, “the conservation president.” During his presidency, Roosevelt helped establish 51 preserves for birds, five national parks, 18…

A Mourning Dove lies belly down on the soil of a garden bed. It fluffs its feathers, then relaxes its wings, draping them outward to expose fully its back and rump to the morning sun. A great many birds sun themselves, often in postures that give maximum sun exposure to the head, neck, and…