Category Archives: birds

A Hawk in the Library

Cicero envisioned paradise as a library in a garden. This week his vision could be amended to include a hawk in the library. A Cooper’s hawk (above) somehow found its way into the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It perches near the top of the library’s magnificent dome, and from time to time it circles over the main reading room. The bird is a juvenile female, and its only repast in six days was a frozen quail. Falconers will try to net the bird today so it can be released outdoors. (Below) The hawk is seen circling beneath a Edwin Blashfield mural restored recently in the dome of the Library of Congress. [Photos by Abby Brack/Library of Congress/NPR] Continue reading






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Teaching Whooping Cranes To Migrate

This Way Survival: An ultralight plane piloted by an Operation Migration team member guiding whooping cranes from Wisconsin to their winter nesting grounds in Florida. [Photo by Mark Peterson/Redux/NYT] Ever since childhood, Whooping cranes have animated for me a personal … Continue reading






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Hope is a Singing Thing with Feathers

I’ve listened to warblers countless times over four decades of birding, but I saw only a handful of them. As a kid I was fortunate to learn the warbler songs from two naturalists gifted with perfect pitch. Even then, when … Continue reading






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Playing By Ear: Audio Embeds

Alex at augmented illusions embedded an audio clip of Common swifts, a harbingerr of spring where he is in Rotterdam. Hearing them transported me to the apartment balcony in Paris where Ms. Modigliani and I have spent many a midsummer … Continue reading






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California Dreamin’: No Coot Poop Allowed

This news story reminds me of something I overheard several years ago when bird flu was the paranoid craze. Why doesn’t the Air Force go up and take out all those birds? According to NPR: “Can coots (a black and … Continue reading






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