Category Archives: Birds
Nature: The Hummingbird Effect In Costa Rica (PBS)
Costa Rica’s motto is Pura Vida – Pure Life – and this deceptively small country is bursting with some of the most spectacular wildlife and pristine ecosystems in the world. All this diversity thrives, in part, thanks to one surprising little creature: hummingbirds.
Venture across Costa Rica’s wild and rugged landscapes, from volcanic peaks to coastal jungle to misty cloud forests, and discover the nation’s dazzling diversity of hummingbirds. There are more than 50 species of hummingbirds here, and they play an outsize role in maintaining some of the richest and wildest environments on Earth.
The Hummingbird Effect premiered on April 12, 2023.
Costa Rica Views: The Tiny ‘Volcano Hummingbird’
The volcano hummingbird (Selasphorus flammula ) is a very small hummingbird, native to the Talamancan montane forests of Costa Rica and western Panama.
This tiny endemic bird inhabits open brushy areas, paramo, and edges of elfin forest at altitudes from 1850 m to the highest peaks. It is only 7.5 cm long. The male weighs 2.5 g and the female 2.8 g. The black bill is short and straight.
The adult male volcano hummingbird has bronze-green upperparts and rufous-edged black outer tail feathers. The throat is grey-purple in the Talamanca range, red in the Poas-Barva mountains and pink-purple in the Irazú-Turrialba area, the rest of the underparts being white. The female is similar, but her throat is white with dusky spots. Young birds resemble the female but have buff fringes to the upperpart plumage.
The female volcano hummingbird is entirely responsible for nest building and incubation. She lays two white eggs in her tiny plant-down cup nest 1–5 m high in a scrub or on a root below a south or east facing bank. Incubation takes 15–19 days, and fledging another 20–26.
Nature In The City: The ‘Herons Of Amsterdam’
The grey heron (Ardea cinerea ) is a long-legged wading bird of the heron family, Ardeidae, native throughout temperate Europe and Asia and also parts of Africa. It is resident in much of its range, but some populations from the more northern parts migrate southwards in autumn. A bird of wetland areas, it can be seen around lakes, rivers, ponds, marshes and on the sea coast. It feeds mostly on aquatic creatures which it catches after standing stationary beside or in the water or stalking its prey through the shallows.
Nature: Hummingbirds In Argentina And Brazil (BBC)
In the Atlantic Rainforest of Argentina and Brazil, hummingbirds gather around flowers in a spectacular dance.
Nature In Ohio: Turkeys In Swan Creek Metropark
Ohio’s largest gamebird can be viewed almost everywhere, nowadays – woodlands, prairies and even areas of suburbia. Seen and heard in just about in every Metropark and sometimes frequenting the Windows on Wildlife at Wildwood and Swan Creek Preserve in the city, a wild turkey could soon be visiting a backyard feeding station near you.
Wildlife: Snowy Owls & Chicks In Alaska (BBC)
These Alaskan snowy owl chicks need to triple their weight before reaching independence, meaning their parents must hunt 30 lemmings per day for them to eat!
Wildlife Photography: Jocelyn Anderson & “The Beautiful World Of Birds”
Cover Preview: Audubon Magazine – October 2022
Audubon Magazine Fall 2022:
It’s the Moment of Truth for Saving the Northern Spotted Owl
Preventing the Pacific Northwest icon’s extinction calls for aggressive intervention, including killing another owl species. Will we act fast enough?
Best-Selling Author Jeff VanderMeer Finds That Nature Is Stranger Than Fiction
The novelist attained fame with gripping works of eco-fiction. How hard could it be to rewild his own backyard?
Nature Views: Ospreys In Delaware Bay, New Jersey
“Sunday Morning” takes us among ospreys feathering their nests at the Delaware Bay estuary, near Morristown, New Jersey. Videographer: Jeff Reisly.
Unique among North American raptors for its diet of live fish and ability to dive into water to catch them, Ospreys are common sights soaring over shorelines, patrolling waterways, and standing on their huge stick nests, white heads gleaming. These large, rangy hawks do well around humans and have rebounded in numbers following the ban on the pesticide DDT. Hunting Ospreys are a picture of concentration, diving with feet outstretched and yellow eyes sighting straight along their talons.
Boomers Daily 