The Northern Mockingbird has a broad repertoire. It can mimic everything from other birds to inanimate objects. And it does so at all hours of the day and night. As poet Randall Jarrell put it: On the willow's highest branch, monopolizing Day and night, cheeping, squeaking, soaring, The…

When a goat puts its head down to graze, its eyes rotate in its head to keep its horizontal pupils parallel to the ground. That gives the goat, a prey animal with eyes on the sides of its head, a panoramic view of its surroundings - and keeps everything right-side up in case it has to…

In the early 1930s, a young English traveler named Patrick Leigh “Paddy” Fermor set out to walk from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul. The account of his journey became a classic of travel writing — including his descriptions of Golden Eagles in the Carpathian Mountains of Czechoslovakia…

For some birds that nest along western streams — including American Dippers and female Harlequin Ducks, like this one — the best way to remain inconspicuous is to hide in plain sight—by looking like just another wet, gray stone. The female Harlequin, resting atop a boulder, is master of…

Not that long ago, Passenger Pigeons filled the skies. Some flocks, with more than a billion birds, took four days to pass overhead. Aldo Leopold called the pigeon "a biological storm." Now they are extinct, gone forever from our world. But other birds remain! This spring, go out and…

What bird can fly straight up and down, backward and forward, and even upside down? A hummingbird can do all this -- and fly up to 75 miles an hour. And most amazing of all? This bird can slow from 25 miles an hour to a dead stop in a space no longer than your index finger! Learn more…

Two herons, one dark, the other white, feed at the edge of a wooded pond in the South. Both birds are Little Blue Herons. What's going on here? Well, the white bird is a juvenile. These young herons forage with flocks of Snowy Egrets, which stir up prey. The white immatures mix readily…

Osceola, also called Florida, Turkeys are right at home in Florida’s flatwoods and dense, swampy landscapes, which likely protected it from overhunting in the early 1900s. If you ever find yourself in the Florida woods, be sure to keep an ear out. If you’re on turkey turf, you’re likely to…

The word “loon” comes from the Old Norse word for “lame.” Because their feet are so far back on their bodies, loons cannot walk on land. But in flight, they’re graceful, and under water, they're swift in pursuit of fish. Red-throated Loons – like this one – breed in the far north and…

It’s junco season in North America. Flocks of these white-bellied snowbirds are kicking and scratching on woodland edges and beneath feeders from southern Canada to Mexico. On warm winter days, the males may even break into song. But songs and calls aren’t the only way Dark-eyed Juncos…