Birds

A friend recently told me all about the Baltimore orioles they had been observing, complete with a cell phone picture of the oriole feeding on a half an orange at their feeder.Most everyone is familiar with the Baltimore oriole, but it might surprise you that North Dakota has three species of orioles. The Baltimore oriole and the orchard oriole range over much of the state. The orchard oriole is darker with the orange being less prominent. The bullock’s oriole may be found southwest of the Missouri River. It is a chunkier oriole with brighter coloration, and unlike the Baltimore oriole which has a dark head, the bullocks head is orange with a black cap and eye stripe.

Have you been hearing this bird song this summer? We have been hearing these calls frequently this summer emanating from a small thick stand of aspen and shrubs. It sounds like there are several birds in there. But occasionally we get the opportunity to see the source, which is a catbird, or gray catbird to be more precise. No doubt some of you recognized the song.

I have heard about someone getting quite excited recently about seeing a scarlet tanager in Turtle Mountain. Scarlet tanagers, as the name implies are…

Perhaps like me you have heard those sounds from overhead during the spring and fall bird migrations and looked skyward to see what was causing it. But…

I trust you are enjoying the song of the American robin this spring! It has been a long winter, and hearing their song makes spring official and gives us…

On this date in 1917, North Dakotans learned that golden eagles were sighted in the Sheyenne Valley. First noticed in 1915, the eagle population was…

We had a reddish sparrow sized bird at the feeder the other day. Once again I had to look closely to determine if it was a purple finch or a house finch.…

We have been seeing chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, both the downy and hairy woodpeckers, and blue jays at our bird feeders this winter. But even…

No doubt many casual observers among us have been dismissing a lot of large black birds as crows. A closer look, however, might reveal that a lot of those…

If you haven’t already noticed some small sparrow-sized birds flitting through the brush in your area, you should soon. And if you take a closer look, you…