Owning the autumn sky
The loud, piercing keee-eeeeerrrr jerks your head up involuntarily to see the essence of wild freedom – a red-tailed hawk, wings outstretched banking slowly in the blue. It stops you, if only for a second or two, it stops you. If you are close enough to get a...
A bird with two tales
Roger Tory Petersen called it, “one of the most breathtaking of the world’s weirdest birds,” and it was John James Audubon’s “rose-coloured curlew.” But the name that has s tuck is roseate spoonbill. The roseate spoonbill is one of only six species of spoonbills in...
No this ain’t Dallas
Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Dallas. And I’m sure that if you like big, hot, crowded cities the big “D” has lots to offer. But when I met my guest, from Dallas, on the Blue Ridge Parkway last Friday morning, with the temperature in the 60s, she...
Where martins hang
Purple martin “scouts” are some of the earliest harbingers of spring. I recorded one in February at Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana during last year’s Great Backyard Bird Count and it’s not uncommon for them to show up in Florida in January. The...
Carolina birder video bombed
Carolina birder Matt Daw from Raleigh was videoing a least bittern last week as it foraged at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. In an interview, Daw said he was looking through the viewfinder at the bittern when suddenly, an interloper...
Learn about the GNSA
The regional environmental group Wild South has a hike planned for July 13 into the heart of, what they hope will soon be, one of the wildest national scenic areas in the country. Wild South and its partners and supporters have been marshaling support for the proposed...