A handful of Eastern Bluebirds were seen visiting the bird feeders and, more importantly, inspecting the nest boxes placed in Catch the Wind last season. It won’t be long now…. Spring’s just around the bend!Read more
Posts filed in: Birds
Hard Work Pays Off For Sap Sucking Bird!
The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker that drilled the wells, which flowed of sap, which in turn fed the ants of the very last post, was at it again. This time, it was the sapsucker that was sipping the sap from the wells. Hard work does pay off!Read more
Live Eagle Cam
For those interested in raptors, large raptors, there is a live feed to a nesting Bald Eagle at Jordan Lake (Chatham County, NC). The camera is directly above the nest. I was just now (9:17 AM, 1/22/11) watching the adult tend to the chicks. At this time there are pieces of fish on the edge of the nest. The adult just now sat down on the two very small, downy, but nearly naked chicks (must be cold up in thatRead more
Dino Quiz Answers Finally Revealed!
The long wait for the answers to the Dino Quiz is over! Congratulations, all of you are winners!! However, not all of you identified all of the dinosaurs correctly. Everyone had at least three of the IDs wrong. Six was the highest number of incorrect answers. The most commonly misidentified dinosaur was #15 which is a close-up of the eye of the Stygimoloch and not Edmontonia as most of you suggested. I’m assuming that most of you thought that thisRead more
A Bird Walk Thru the Week
On this bright, sunny, and relatively warm day following many days of below normal temperatures, I thought it’d be nice to take a walk through the past week or so and have a look at some of the birds that frequent Explore the Wild and Catch the Wind. Take a walk. It’s good for you.Read more
Dino Quiz
When biologists conduct wildlife surveys they sometimes have to rely on only brief glimpses of their subject in order to document them. A birder often only gets a quick look at a bird, and then only a small part of the bird, in order to identify it. Many times, it’s only a flash of a wing, the head, or even the tail that’s visible as the bird moves around in the dense brush, or flies away only to duck downRead more
People and Birds in the News
Last Wednesday (1/5/11) was a busy day here at the Museum. Besides the sightings of a Barred Owl, Red-shouldered Hawk, and Cooper’s Hawk, two other raptorial birds were seen on the trails of the outdoor areas. Master Teachers Meredith Cochran and Anna Engelke were spotted walking Christopher and Misha, the Museum’s Barred Owl and Red-tailed Hawk. Both the owl and the hawk are birds which were injured in the wild and whose injuries are such that they can not fendRead more
The Owl and the Mockingbird (and the Hawk)
About 11 AM on Wednesday (1/5/11) Facilities Tech, Al Gustafson spotted a Northern Mockingbird harassing a Barred Owl in a small pine tree 30 feet or so from the east entrance to the Farm Yard. Al radioed me, and I was able to get a dozen or more photos of the bird. And, many Museum visitors were able to get close looks at a bird that most folks would have passed by unseen. Thanks Al. Barred Owls are quite common inRead more
The Fox and the Squirrel
As I stood near the top of the boardwalk, unsuccessfully attempting to photograph a squirrel stripping a pine cone of its seeds (the squirrel kept turning its back to me just as I tripped the shutter) I noticed a reddish-brown and gray colored object quickly move out from under some exposed tree roots to my right. It was a bird, a large, brightly colored sparrow. It was a Fox Sparrow. I hadn’t seen a Fox Sparrow here at the MuseumRead more