birds

A flutter of striking black, white, and grey outside the window caught my attention, and as I walked closer I saw a dozen large-bodied, sharp-beaked birds hopping around on the treed hillside. The Clark’s Nutcrackers are here again!

Tail feathers, and tails in general, provide a variety of functions for different animal species. The prehensile tails of monkeys in Central and South America are the ultimate fifth appendage. These tails can be used for grasping and hanging from branches and manipulating objects. Curiously, while African monkey species often have similar tails, none have grasping prehensile tails.

I often feel that new words come to me at the exact right moment. This fall, I had one of those moments of synchronicity, when I began to see the word…

This summer, while watching white-crowned sparrows, pine siskins and Cassin's finches feeding on the sunflower seeds we’d scattered on the rail of the…

I know that gully. It’s full of secrets, hidden under the downfall, in the hawthorne trees, or in woodpecker holes that riddle the twisted old aspens. I…

The Trump administration moved forward Friday with plans to scale back a century-old law protecting most American wild bird species, despite warnings that…

As winter faded into spring and the last remnants of snow remained in shadowy patches atop higher peaks, I wandered into the Rattlesnake Wilderness,…

There are poems on the wing upon the mountainsides – fraught with beauty and peril. A female bunting with grass in her mouth is one such poem. In May,…

While glancing out my window the other day, I noticed a killdeer in my neighbor’s unpaved gravel driveway. I was reminded of the first time that I noticed…

Except when mating and nesting, bohemian and cedar waxwings are simply highly social birds. They seek food and water supplies large enough for the entire…