Like a barnyard chicken or a miniature wild turkey, the little black bird scraped away at the leaves, using one foot at a time to reveal a seed or bug on the woodland floor, then employing both feet ...

It’s been hot for a week, made worse by thick humid conditions. Smart money says stay in the house. But playing it smart means no hope to see good things in nature. Indoors offers nothing. Outdoors, ...

One of my favorite spring arrival birds, an eastern towhee, showed up in the back yard last week. I’m especially fond of this member of the sparrow family as its cheery song that sounds like “drink ...

Characteristics: A sparrow-sized bird, this towhee has a black head, red eye and the males have a black back with white spots, hence the common name. Females are browner instead of black. The ...

The rufous-sided towhee, with its striking plumage, is a somewhat secretive member of the finch family that flits from beneath vegetation to visit feeders or scratch around in garden litter.

Back in the day, we did not have an app that could tell us what birds we were hearing. Now we have Merlin from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Press “record” on this free app, and it listens to ...

A selection of bird essays by renowned ornithologist and artist George Miksch Sutton (1898-1982), founder of the Avian Research Center in Norman, Okla., was posthumously published in 1986 as “Birds ...

CHICO — A Rufous-sided Towhee visited my yard. Or at least I think that’s what it was.? The first time the bird appeared, I grabbed an Audubon field guide for identification.?The trouble with those ...

The following 20 birds moved the most north of all 305 species studied by the Audubon Society. For five of the birds on the list – Wild Turkey, Marbled Murrelet, Ring-billed Gull, House Finch and ...

A male eastern towhee is quite dashing in appearance. Black above, white below and a lovely cinnamon-brown on the flanks give this bird the look of a tuxedoed gentleman on his way to some high-society ...