Birder's World Field of View
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Contributing Editor David Sibley (right), author of the groundbreaking Sibley Guide to Birds , has been busy lately. Last fall, he published his Sibley Guide to Trees , which explains what to look for to identify 668 native and commonly cultivated trees in North America. In an interview with Editor Chuck Hagner , he described it as a “tree guide for birdwatchers.” Last week, Sibley released a version of the Guide to Birds for the iPhone. Called The...
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I'm happy to announce that our April 2010 issue -- full of places to go birding this spring, a guide to photography blinds, a list of citizen-science projects that help birds and need volunteers, ID tips from David Allen Sibley and Kenn Kaufman, lots of great photos, and plenty more -- is now available online. Subscribe to Birder's World! Find Birder's World on a newsstand near you. Sign up for our FREE monthly e-newsletter. The issue...
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In September 2006, Craig Thompson, chair of the International Committee of the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative and a regional land program supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, flew to Ecuador with 11 other birders on a trip they dubbed the “Jocotoco Birdathon.” They had two goals: to see fabulous tropical birds, including the Jocotoco Antpitta, a black-capped songbird discovered in 1997 by renowned ornithologist Robert...
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Jeannette Fackler of Garrettsville, Ohio, pictured at right, is the winner of our third Readers' Favorites Survey . Congratulations, Jeannette! She was one of more than 2,000 people who answered our survey about birdwatchers' favorite places to see hummingbirds. The survey was conducted in December and January. We'll publish the results here on BirdersWorld.com and in our upcoming June 2010 issue. Jeannette wins a new pair of Monarch 8x36...
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According to data I downloaded on eBird today, birdwatchers reported Loggerhead Shrikes from Florida to California and as far north as Idaho and Maryland this winter. Counts peaked at more than 2,200 individuals during the week of January 1. In recent weeks, the shrikes seem to be most numerous in coastal Texas, Louisiana, and central California. Now I'm wondering if any of them were juveniles, like the one pictured here. As we noted in Birding...
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At the risk of giving credibility to a possible hoax, here's what we know about the latest report of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker sighting. If Daniel Rainsong has photos of a living Ivory-billed Woodpecker, as this press release claims , he has not yet shown them to two leading Ivory-bill experts. Van Remsen , curator of birds at Louisiana State University's Museum of Natural Science and an adjunct professor of biological sciences at LSU, told...
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In our June 2008 issue, Jeffrey Wells, senior scientist for the Boreal Songbird Initiative , visiting fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology , and author of Birder's Conservation Handbook: 100 North American Birds at Risk , wrote an article about why the Endangered Species List doesn't come close to describing the status of all of America's birds. "Because listing under the [Endangered Species Act] is a policy process, not a scientific...
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Our February 2010 issue, the first of the new year, is now on newsstands. I think you'll like it. Here are six solid reasons why: David Allen Sibley tells how head patterns match up with five feather groups on common backyard birds -- Black-capped Chickadee, Song Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Downy Woodpecker, and Blue Jay. Kenn Kaufman explains why voice is the most reliable way to separate Oak Titmouse and Juniper Titmouse, western birds...
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Here's a photo that grabbed our attention. An American Coot attacks a young chick and prepares to kill it. Bruce Lyon , professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California Santa Cruz, shot the photo during the course of a research project that found that the coot's reproductive life is full of deception and violence. Coots have evolved remarkable cognitive abilities that allow them to thwart other coots that lay eggs...
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Contributions from two organizations have tripled the amount of a reward offered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who shot and killed a Whooping Crane near Cayuga, Indiana. Defenders of Wildlife , a national non-profit conservation organization, and the Indiana Turn in a Poacher or a Polluter Program are each donating $2,500 to the reward for information that leads...
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We have our second winner in our Readers' Favorites Survey ! In our December 2009 issue, we asked you to tell us your favorite places in the United States and Canada to see warblers, and as you did when we requested locations to watch eagles , you came through. Big time. Many, many thanks for taking the time to share your expertise, and thank you for your comments. Once again, your responses will help us paint a colorful, useful portrait of birdwatching...
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For the cover of our December 2009 issue, we knew we wanted a shot of a winter finch -- one of a handful of hardy northern songbirds that wander unpredictably each year -- but we didn't know which one. We would have been happy with a Pine Grosbeak, White-winged Crossbill, or Purple Finch, but when we saw Marie Read's beautiful, engaging photo of a Common Redpoll, we knew we had our bird. Read is a talented nature photographer from Ithaca,...
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After all the bad news about Whooping Cranes and their human caretakers — the shooting death of an adult female , the vandalism at the Operation Migration hangar , and the recent crash-landing of the top-cover Cessna in a farm field in southern Illinois — it's time for a bit of good news. The TD Friends of the Environment Foundation , a Canadian organization that funds local environmental projects, has announced that it is donating $15,000 to...
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Matt, Julie, and I got some very good news this week: BirdersWorld.com received a 2009 silver Eddie Award for excellence in online editorial from Folio magazine. The Eddie and Ozzie Awards, conducted annually, are the largest awards competition in magazine publishing. The Ozzies recognize excellence in magazine design. The Eddies recognize editorial excellence. We couldn't be happier. See a list of all 2009 Eddie Award winners. As I'm sure...
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A seven-year-old Whooping Crane — the only successful breeding female from the eastern migratory population — was shot and killed in western Indiana, near the town of Cayuga in central Vermillion County, officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the International Crane Foundation said today. The crane, known as 17-02, and her mate, 11-02, hatched two chicks in summer 2006 and one in summer 2009 at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central...
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