Bird Watch

Used to seeing pigeons eat bread crumbs and other human-food scraps I was surprised to observe three pigeons, pictured above, eating the berries from a type of holly, possibly an Ilex glabra ‘Nigra’ (Black Inkberry).  On pigeon food, the Mass Audubon website provides the following information: A pigeon’s diet consists primarily of seeds, but it […]

Pigeons (and all of their relatives in the family Columbidae) have “unique drinking behavior” defined as “suck[ing] up water, using their beaks like straws. p.s. local ecologist is on YouTube here.

A few weeks ago we visited several of the Royal Parks in London. The Royal Parks are Bushy Park, The Green Park, Greenwich Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, The Regent’s Park & Primrose Hill, Richmond Park, and St James’s Park. We were impressed by the number and diversity of water and garden birds that inhabit […]

Although the pigeon is in the Dove family and is also known as the rock dove (Columba livia), this post is not about that city bird.  Rather it is about the mourning dove or Zenaida macroura.  The Field Guide to the Birds of North America (1987, Third Edition) is the source of the quote that […]

Mourning dove in nest Writing for BirdScope (Vol. 25, 2), Laura Erickson listed the “top ten technologies for studying birds” as: 1. Field guides and binoculars 2. Numbered leg bands 3. Cameras 4. Microphones and recorders 5. Radio and satellite transmitters 6. Radar 7. Spectrograms 8. DNA analysis 9. Telecommunications 10. Autonomous recording units or […]