Wildlife Watch

Are the critters getting smarter, or am I getting dumber? This year, the squirrels and chipmunks have been besting us at every turn. It is sometimes comforting to think that humans are smarter than other animals, but if I ever believed that, I no longer do. As some of you know, my husband and I … Read more

Do you enjoy feeding and watching our most beautiful birds the ruby-throated hummingbird? I have been reading a book with my book club titled The Fastest Things on Wings by Terry Masear. She is a Hollywood-based wildlife rehabilitator who works only with hummingbirds. In her fifteen-year career as a hummingbird rehabber, rescuing thousands of hummingbirds, … Read more

Are you a birder? If so, are you a contributor to eBird? This interactive birding website was developed by Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and launched in 2002. Anyone can join free of charge. The website describes the program this way: “eBird transforms a global birding community’s passion for birds into critical data for research, conservation, … Read more

Now that May has arrived and our spring trees, shrubs and wildflowers are blooming, we should give some thought to bees, our most important pollinators. Without them, we would have very few plants. Or as a recent USDA report states, “The world as we know it would not exist if there were no bees to … Read more

Who’s top bird at your feeder? An interesting thing to observe while you are identifying birds is who is displacing whom at the bird feeder. This displacement behavior in birds is called a “dominance hierarchy”. For instance, we think of doves as peaceful and jays as aggressive. Cornell Lab of Ornithology set out to study … Read more