Common Raven

Common Raven

By Gail Cleveland The acrobatic aerial display of two jet black birds soaring, wheeling and tumbling with wingtips touching — inverted commas in the sky. This spring scene is the mating display of the Common Raven,the largest of the passerines (perching birds) that has “become the most widely naturally disturbed bird in the world, inhabiting…

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Flicker

Northern Flicker

By Lisa Bate See a flash of red-orange from a flying bird, hear the familiar “flicka, flicka, flicka” call and I know that one of my favorite birds has just landed. It is the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)! This species is unmistakable in the field because the lower surface of its wings and tail are…

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Rufous, Calliope, & Black-chinned Hummingbirds

By Linda de Kort The whir of young hummingbirds is in the air as they buff up and prepare for their southern journey.Their parents arrived here last spring from as far away as Mexico. Most adults have already started their return to their wintering grounds and the young will be leaving by the end of…

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Lewis’s Woodpecker

By Lewis Young Named for Captain Meriwether Lewis, who first scientifically described them during the 1804-1806 Lewis & Clark Expedition, Lewis’s woodpeckers are unusual in that much of the year they feed mostly by catching insects in acrobatic flight. They swoop out from a perch like a flycatcher or circle in the air like a…

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