Eight of us set out this evening for an Aimophila Adventures owl workshop, starting in Tucson and ending at a crowded and noisy campground a vertical mile above the city. The owls were reticent–we heard only Flammulated and Whiskered Screech-Owls–but the owling was fine, with good company and temperatures eventually 30 degrees F lower than […]

… is this?

Photo Darlene Smyth
This morning’s IBA survey was pleasant enough, but it was obvious that summer has arrived in southeast Arizona: in nearly two hours we saw not a single bird that was certainly a migrant. Of course, no reason to complain when the breeding residents include such fancies as Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet and Broad-billed […]

Usk, Washington, has never meant more to me than an amusing roadsign, but this noon, following the hint in the Lane/ABA bird-finding guide, I checked out a spot along the Pend Oreille River there, finding it every bit as pleasant and as birdful as promised.
Kings Lake Road (called, inscrutably, “Fifth” in the bfg) leads across […]

Yes, if I weren’t a birder I’d be a squirreler, and Columbia ground-squirrel has long been a favorite. They love trashy, newly disturbed roadsides and construction sites–almost as much as they love fresh leaves.

This one was laying on spring fat at the Castlegar airport on Saturday.
And here, for Memorial Day, a lovely flower from the […]

Alison and I spent yesterday’s midday on a damp and chilly Saturday at the Waldie Island Trail, a relatively new preserve established along the Columbia River near Castlegar, British Columbia.

It wasn’t the optimal time of day, but birding was still pleasant, with the full suite of riparian singers singing riparianly: among them Warbling Vireo, Yellow […]