Male cardinal. (Photo: Gary Leavens - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)
I awoke on a Sunday morning last week, started the coffee, then opened the curtains to my backyard. My usual habit, but on this Sunday, I had the surprise of seeing a female Northern Cardinal duck into the tight weave of a climbing rose about seve...
Shana holding a superb starling (Lamprotornis superbus)
As part of the new Stengl-Wyer Endowment, the Stengl Wyer Postdoctoral Scholars Program provides up to three years of independent support for talented postdoctoral researchers in the broad area of the diversity of life and/or organisms in their natural environments. Shana Caro is one o...
Photo: Dick Daniels (http://carolinabirds.org/)
If you step outside, you can probably hear this bird in a nearby tree, cooing softly. Or you might see it foraging on the ground, its head bobbing back and forth on its plump beige body.
This is the white-winged dove (Zenaida asiatica). Its name tells you how to tell it apart from ot...
Photo: Kathryn Gatliff
The Northern Mockingbird is probably one of the easiest birds to identify, if not by their bold maneuvers to protect their territory, then certainly by their characteristic song. In fact, their scientific name Mimus polyglottos is based entirely on their vocal natures: “mimus” is Latin for mimic and “polyglo...