Latest posts
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Watching the Wild Ones Come Home to Roost
For weeks now, our garden has had regular company, a charming little flock of turkeys. The other evening, my son came running in to report a fence-top chase already underway, wings flapping, feet scrambling for balance. By the time I got outside, the drama had settled: just two turkeys left perched on the fence, looking…
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Bushtits: What’s up with their name?
With a name like Bushtit, I had to find out the story behind it. Here’s the best explanation I found, from animalia.bio: American naturalist John Kirk Townsend first described the species in 1837, after spotting it in the forests along the Columbia River. He named it Parus minimus — “parus” being Latin for titmouse, and…
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Nature’s Alarm Clock: the Pileated Woodpecker
I was looking forward to sleeping in last Sunday morning but a pileated woodpecker had other plans. Its unmistakable call yanked me out of bed, and before I’d fully processed what I was doing, I’d thrown on clothes and wandered outside to find it. Still half asleep, I dropped into a chair on the back…
Bernie Sees A Bird 