The Experience of Birding
It was a perfect prairie homecoming today. Gary, Chris, Mark, and Molly discovered a Lapland Longspur yesterday on the Sonoita grasslands near Elgin, and there was no way I couldn’t look for that bird, a species with fewer than 20 records ever for southeast Arizona. So Darlene and I bumped across the pastures on a …
Continue reading “Longspurs 3, Owls 2”
It’s an owl! And a mighty cute one at that. The burrowing owl is a ferocious little cave-dweller, at home on two continents. Help celebrate these fierce-eyed predators and their habitats!
Peterson Reference Guide to Sparrows of North America Aguirre-Muñoz, A., et al. 2011. “Island Restoration in Mexico: Ecological Outcomes After Systematic Eradications of Invasive Mammals.” Pp. 250-258 in: Veitch, C., et al., eds. Island Invasives: Eradication and Management. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. Aiken, C. 1873. “A New Species of Sparrow.” American Naturalist 7: 236-237. Alderfer, J., ed. 2009. National Geographic …
Continue reading “Peterson Reference Guide to Sparrows: Bibliography”
It was a good plan, nearly a failsafe plan, to hit Chadron State Park pre-dawn to look for poorwills on the roads. What I hadn’t counted on was light rain, heavy fog, and a marathon. We did manage to see one common poorwill come up off the gravel, but when the sun came up and …
Continue reading “East on the Pine Ridge”
What’s more fun than birding with friends? Birding southeast Arizona with friends, of course. After meeting up at the Hampton Inn, our congenial group — birders from Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, and New Jersey — headed straight to the first of our several Subway lunches: predictable, reasonably healthy, and usually fast, except in this case, when the …
Continue reading “Southeast Arizona”