The Red-winged Blackbird is one of the most abundant birds in North America and is sometimes considered a symbol of good luck and fortune. Males are glossy-black with flashy scarlet-and-yellow shoulder patches. They live in marshes year-round and can often be spotted atop cattails, along soggy roadsides and on telephone wires. Bold and fearless, Red-winged […]
Talk about a showstopper. The male Andean Cock-of-the-rock sports bright red-orange plumage with a head crest that nearly obscures its bill. This is the national bird of Peru, and true to its name, it’s got an attitude to match its style. Known for elaborate breeding displays, males gather at communal spots to show off their […]
Common Grackles sometimes get a bad rap. They can be noisy, raid the snacks at a patio party and squawk like the dickens. But they are highly intelligent, can recognize and remember individual humans and they also eat annoying wasps and crop-damaging insects. A flock of Grackles is called a “plague.” In the later summer […]
The striking strawberry-colored male Summer Tanager is the only completely red bird in North America. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology describes the Summer Tanager as “a bee and wasp specialist.” The birds catch the insects while in flight and then kill them by beating them against a branch. Before chowing down, they rub the wasp […]
BIRDLAND | Mark Silverstein Open Wide Male and female Barn Swallow couples work together to build their nests, often under bridges and other structures, out of mud and dried grass and lined with soft white feathers. When the chicks hatch they are blind and featherless and must be fed every 20 minutes from dawn to […]
Belted Kingfishers are most effective fishers, hence their name. They are highly territorial, and spend much of their time perched alone in trees along the edges of streams and lakes looking for small fish. When they spot one they either dive-bomb directly from their perch to capture it, or they hover over the water, with […]
The Green-winged Teal is the smallest dabbling duck in North America. They are fast, agile, buoyant flyers, and can take off straight from the water without having to first run across the surface. The males, like the one pictured here, have light gray bodies and cinnamon-colored heads with wide green swoops from their eyes to […]
Sword-billed Hummingbirds have the longest bill in relation to their body size of any bird in the world. And they put those long bills to use. These hummingbirds have co-evolved with the passionflower, which holds nectar at the bottom of their long corolla tubes. Sword-bills provide critical pollination, as no other bird has a bill […]
Emerald Toucanets live in the highest branches of trees in dense forests from Mexico to Venezuela. Their diets consist mainly of fruit, and though they live up to 14 years they rarely come down to the ground. Toucanets are one of 43 species of toucans and like the parrots and macaws and woodpeckers they share […]
Throughout time the Great Horned Owl has been steeped in symbolism and superstition. Some cultures have considered these birds sinister, but many others have admired them for their strength, wisdom and intuition. Some Native Americans regard Great Horned Owls as friendly spirits with special powers that can ignite human passion — one tribe describes the […]