seasonofplentyblog

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Bonus:

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jo diggs, mother earth father sky (detail), 1986

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How exciting! Congratulations!

Not one but two Black-throated Gray Warblers have spent time in Central Jersey in recent weeks, when they ought to be in the Southwest or Mexico. This is the one at Rutgers University, which I saw this morning on my second try.

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Go Away!

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Saw a lot of these today.

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Birds of Madison, Wisconsin: Brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater)

The much-maligned brown-headed cowbird is a common urban bird, but easy to miss. The males are black with glossy brown heads whose color is hard to see outside of direct sunlight. The females are brown. Neither are much bigger than house sparrows.

Read the full post at https://www.seasonofplenty.com/brown-headed-cowbird/.

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Migration has started and I've seen so many new Birds each day. Yesterday I saw for Sparrow species and this Eastern Phoebe. 2 days ago I saw a woodcock in my backyard! The yellow-bellied sapsuckers are also traveling through. Life is good.

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Red-tail Hawk-Wyle Rd, WA 17 March 2018

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Boop the snoot for kisses!

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White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla)

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Blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)

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Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)

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Common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) at my campus

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Pied wagtail (Motacilla alba yarrellii), 16/01/18

I’ve been waiting a while to get one of these guys up on the roof outside my window - today, I finally got my wish!

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Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto), 28/02/18

Skittish, yet full of their own charm, these doves tower over most of the comparatively tiny birds that frequently dine in my garden.

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the dodo might hold the crown as the most famous extinct animal, and granted, they deserve it. they were the first species that humans acknowledged they had led to the extinction of. that’s a really significant title! but comparatively speaking, the death of a species of fat flightless pigeon with no natural predator on a tiny island isn’t half as horrifying as what happened to passenger pigeons.

the sheer scale at which these birds existed, and their subsequent extinction, is something i cannot wrap my head around. i know what happened – i’ve read novels upon novels about this, i’ve seen the pictures, i know all the details, but the more i think about it the more i realise i can’t possibly process it to its fullest extent because i wasn’t there. i didn’t live through that. i’ll never be able to fully understand how sudden it was.

these birds were over 5 billion strong at their peak. when they travelled, they allegedly blacked out the sun for thirty minutes at a time. they formed rivers in the sky, and there’s art and record of this from dozens of people. it wasn’t just one person’s poetic interpretation. these birds existed in an overwhelming quantity, and no doubt because of that that people took them for granted.

they were plentiful. they were obnoxiously plentiful, and yet humans took them out so cleanly and quickly and efficiently that from this species, from this five billion-strong species, we have only a single picture of a passenger pigeon squab. 

these birds faded out of existence in the span of someone’s lifetime.

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A Very Alien Looking Pacific Loon With Glowing Red Eyes by Gary Lackie Pacific Loon (Gavia pacifica)