A large and a small heron in a pond set against tall grasses. Both have their wings raised because they have just had a skirmish.
A great blue heron and a little blue heron, when juxtaposed, prove that sometimes bird names are just and correct. #BirdOfTheDay #MixedPairs 🪶
Today's a good day to get up close with an Orchid Mantis (Hymenopus coronatus). ➡️
Oh yay!!! I can't wait to see it in the wild!
I assume they loop their lookout in on the shenanigans after the meeting!
Crocuses are one of those things that make little cartoon hearts pop out of my head every time I see them!
Yawny about Costa Rican birds? Silly Roger!
A group of five black and white birds with comical (and conical) orange and black beaks huddle up on top of a seaweed-covered rock.
These Atlantic puffins are Up to Something. No razorbills, murres, or humans allowed in the club! #BirdOfTheDay #FourOrMore
A songbird with a blue head, red chest, and red-ringed eye stretches up tall as he prepares to inspect a small flower on a tree.
For #BirdOfTheDay, my favorite primary-colored bird has to be the painted bunting. I rarely get to see them, so that makes their rainbow of colors even more exciting when I do. 🪶
It's been a long time coming! Thankfully they were really interested in sitting in the mowed parts of a pathway, so once we found the right place we had good views.
A big round shorebird with a light orange chest and dappled wing feathers of all sorts, plus a huge eye and long pinkish beak, sits in a grassy field illuminated by flashlight.
Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #BestOfTheMonth, and for me that was the experience of finally seeing an American woodcock. We get a short window this time of year to find them before they head north to breed, and in the past I've only heard a distant peent. This one, though, was a real sweetie! 🪶
There are so many red-shouldered hawks in our little forest screaming bloody murder at each other that a couple weeks ago, I said, "This is a total soap opera." So today I wrote about it. I give you: The Bold and the Buteo. 🪶 overtonpark.org/blog/naturez...
Is a sherbet-colored borb a shorbet? (Is this the dumbest sentence I have ever composed?)
A large mottled shorebird with a long curved beak holding a glob of wet sand walks along the edge of the shore. Pacific Grove, CA December '22
For today's #BirdOfTheDay I submit this Hudsonian whimbrel, who's hoping to find a tasty crustacean in that glob of sand. #BirdsInTheirElement 🪶
Rusted clearwing-satyr - a butterfly whose mostly-clear wings have a red splotch at the back with a false eye in it, making it look like the face of a snake
Clearwings are just the most ridiculous things. We saw one flying down a trail and it looked like a red laser beam (or maybe Tinkerbell?). I'm so glad you ran into one!
I hope you post a bunch more! I am still thinking about being there in January and how much I want to go back.
Fantastic!! I hope you had the very best time.
A white bird with black wingtips, a black swoosh behind the eyes, a red bill, and a long thin tail soars over brilliant blue water
I like today's #BirdOfTheDay theme of #WingsOverWater because it's a nice excuse to transport myself back to Little Tobago with the red-billed tropicbirds. These are colors currently not present in my winter landscape!
A profile of the head and neck of a large black game bird with a red eye and neck skin, blue-black facial skin, and a crest that doesn't quite attain Elvis levels.
For #BirdOfTheDay, here's a crested guan that sat for a #Portrait between its two favorite activities: snatching berries off a tree and menacing its colleagues. 🪶
For #ValentinesDay, a throwback to a piece I wrote about odonate heart-wheels, which for some reason is structured as a game of Ms. Pac-Man. No, it does not make sense to me either. overtonpark.org/blog/naturez...
#BugSky
Boy. This one belongs on a book cover.
A butterfly nearly the size of a human hand perches on a gnarly green stem. It has mottled brown wings with various spots that mimic owl eyes, and its wings have been tattered by bird attacks.
A little something different for #SuperbOwl Sunday this year: an enormous banded owl-butterfly that graced me with its presence in Costa Rica last month. I'm a lover of insects with false eyes and this is one of the very best I've seen.
#BugSky
Call your U.S. Senators and Representative and tell them:
✔️ Protect the National Butterfly Center, Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, La Lomita Chapel and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park and nearby conservation lands
Your voice matters.
Locally we're on day 8 of the landscape being one giant sleet brick. I ventured out to see what the #birds were up to and found all that brightness quite revealing: overtonpark.org/blog/naturez...
Ahh, that's a super-cool shot. Probably my most-wanted bird, but I've been too chicken to go north in the winter to try and see one! I just don't have the wardrobe for its most favored habitat...
A mottled brown and black bird with a yellow and black face sits with its back to the camera, looking to the right in a field of snow.
I had the great fortune of catching up with the @aba.org Bird of the Year today! I'm sure horned larks are present here semi-regularly, but I only ever spot them when there's a lot of snow on the ground. This one wasn't quite ready to show his horns yet. #birds
I don't think anyone should come here if they don't have to right now. ICE and Co. are acting with absolutely no impunity. Every day there are fresh horrors, and we have to hope they're penetrating the news bubbles of the folks who let this happen. Minneapolis folks give me so much hope.
Minneapolis, y'all are my heroes ❤️
A small, very long-tailed black bird with a white band around its eyes and a gray cap, sits on a snag in the rain
This long-tailed tyrant is checking in from Costa Rica for #BirdOfTheDay #ShortBeaks. He promises he has a beak, if you know where to look. Don't be distracted by his splendid tail! 🪶
The view from #2 is still my computer's desktop background. 2026's challenge is to find me a view comparable to that one. It's a high bar!
Orange butterfly with a green body and lots of black dots perched on a tree
Excellent! I had a NYE butterfly today too, which was surprising because it's been freezing here for the last few days. Eastern comma in pretty nice shape!
