Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Home
Today's Show: Killdeer, Master of Distraction
Killdeer doing a broken wing distraction
Listen In
  • Today's Show
  • Listen
    • BirdNote Daily
    • Bring Birds Back
    • Threatened
    • BirdNote Presents
    • Sound Escapes
    • How to Listen
  • Explore
    • Field Notes
    • Sights & Sounds
    • Birdwatching
    • Resources for Educators
  • How to Help Birds
    • At Home
    • In Your Community
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • The Team
    • Board Members
    • DEI/IDEA Commitment
    • Partners
    • For Radio Stations
    • Funding
    • FAQs
    • Support BirdNote
  • Donate

Winter Field Notes - Reflections by Heather Murphy

February 12, 2017
Nature through an artist's eyes
Listen Now
Subscribe
  • Share This:
  • Share to Facebook
  • Share to Twitter
  • Share to Email
Golden-crowned Kinglet, sketch by Heather Murphy Expand Image
© Heather Murphy

Heather Murphy, a naturalist, watches for birds with the trained eye of a wildlife biologist, then makes a few field notes. From her journal: "I hear tzeet-tzeet-tzeet. Fast movement. Ah, a tiny kinglet. Which kinglet? Hm.m.m. No leaves anymore, so I easily see an olive-green back. And through my binocs, eye stripes! Aha! It's the Arctic-loving Golden-crowned Kinglet." Peek into Heather Murphy's journal, where you can see her drawings. See more of Heather's work at WildTales.com.

  • Full Transcript
  • Credits

BirdNote®

Winter Field Notes: Hovering and Bobbing

Reflections by Heather Murphy

This is BirdNote!
[Sounds of a river, flowing]
We’re in the woods today, a mix of conifer and deciduous trees. Eighteen inches of snow cover the ground and the nearby river is freezing over. Heather Murphy, a naturalist, watches for birds with the trained eye of a wildlife biologist, then makes a few field notes. Here, she reads from her journal:
[Flock calls of Golden-crowned Kinglets]

“The sun glances off overhead branches and I hear tzeet-tzeet-tzeetz…fast movement.
Ah, a tiny kinglet, with teeny beak. Which kinglet? Hmmm…

[Flock calls of Golden-crowned Kinglets]

“No leaves anymore … so I easily see an olive-green back. And through my binoculars, eye stripes! Aha! It’s the Arctic-loving Golden-crowned Kinglet.

“Wow! Here’s something I’ve never seen, it’s hovering, like a hummingbird, at the very end of a Black Cottonwood branch… It’s gleaning, vacuuming the hibernating insects from the ends of twigs.”

  [Flowing river and song of the American Dipper]
 
“Downstream along the icy-edged river … I hear high pitched, shortened trills … Cool! It’s an American Dipper … bobbing up and down on the water-covered boulders. It dives into the clear moving waters … swimming … seeing through extra eyelids (nictitating membranes)…it pries submerged insects from river stones. Popping up on the other side of a slender ice sheet, the dipper, which is adapted to winter cold, resumes its watch.”

 [American Dipper and flowing river continue]

Take a moment to turn to the next page in Heather Murphy’s journal. Come to our website, birdnote.org where you can see her drawings.
###
Sounds of provided birds by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Calls of flock of Golden-crowned Kinglets 44839 recorded by Geoffrey Keller; song of American Dipper 105898 by Geoffrey Keller.
Ambient stream recorded by J. Kessler.
Heather Murphy recorded by Chuck Egner [email protected]
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2012 Tune In to Nature.org               February 2017            Narrator: Mary McCann

ID# murphyh-01-2012-02-08  

 

Chris Peterson
Writer
Mary McCann
Narrator
Tags: reflection, Washington, forest

Related Resources

See more of Heather Murphy's work at WildTales.com

More About These Birds

Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa)

Regulus satrapa

Sights & Sounds

Related Field Notes

April 24, 2019

Birds and Nature in Poetry

By BirdNote Gallery
 
February 12, 2017

An Elegy to the Elephant Bird

By Holly J. Hughes
Elephant BirdAepyornis maximus

Birds connect us with the joy and wonder of nature. By telling vivid, sound-rich stories about birds and the challenges they face, BirdNote inspires listeners to care about the natural world – and take steps to protect it.

Support BirdNote

  • About
  • Annual Report
  • Contact
  • Science Advisory Council
  • Pitch Page
  • Sights & Sounds
Sign up for our newsletter!
  • BirdNote on Facebook
  • BirdNote on Twitter
  • BirdNote on Instagram

Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy