Black Skimmers start nesting on Lido Beach in April. Year-round, the birds skim the water with their elongated lower mandibles, snapping shut on surface-swimming prey. No other bird feeds like this, dipping bill in flight to cut a thin surface line a hundred yards running. Their bulky snouts are tangerine-toned turning to black at the […]
Boat-tailed Grackles
Grackles A plague of grackles arrived on the 9th and filled the maple trees that lined the new farm’s driveway all the way to the Jarrettsville Pike. I marveled at their collective chatter, and how they would go silent at a single shout – Hey! Then how the volume would ascend in waves as they […]
White Ibis
Behind the Gate Our Florida yards feed an itinerant white ibis flock, and they graze assiduously next door at the Katz’s. Features of an ibis include a pink-red decurved bill, white wings with black tips, and icy irises. Although common in southwest Florida, ibises appear exotic to visitors more familiar with ancient history than ornithology. […]
Murmuration on the Connecticut River
During a few August and September weeks, hundreds of thousands of tree swallows collect in vast murmurations at the mouth of the Connecticut River. With metallic blue-green wings and white breasts, tree swallows trace the air for insects. After feeding, the thick avian sky drops to rest on shoreline phragmites where the birds cling through […]
The Other White Meat
Dead pig rarely lasts two days in the Florida prairie, not even scraps. Vultures home in on carrion within hours of that final hog’s breath, staking out the carcass until only big bones are left. I don’t often see a pig in the wild — live or dead — but live ones invariably flee. Feral […]