A few mornings ago I stepped out the front door of my house in Maine. It was 5 AM and still dark outside but the sky was echoing with the flight calls of migratory birds. Rainy, foggy weather was causing migrating birds arriving from further north to come down to land as their neared the [...]

Caspian Terns in Maine
Credit: Mike Fahay
A comical looking bird the size of a small gull with a black cap, gray back and a bill that looked like a carrot was spotted stopping off on a beach in mid-coast Maine last week on its way south. Staying close by its side and making regularly whistley-squawky [...]

Northern Waterthrush
Credit: Brian E. Small
The Great Bird Current is flowing north and picking up volume as more and more boreal birds leave their wintering grounds on their way to the boreal forest of Canada and Alaska. They come from South America, Central America, the Caribbean, the southern U.S. and Mexico, with the largest number [...]

While the majority of North American media has been focused on a few high-profile stories over the past few weeks, an amazing and uplifting story has quietly emerged behind the scenes in Manitoba and Ontario.

A warm welcome from some of the children of Bloodvein First Nation.
Credit: Jeff Wells
It began with the joint announcement between [...]

American Pipit
Credit: Jeff Wells
This is a long overdue blog installment about the birds that I observed on my trip to the George River of northern Quebec from August 8-13, 2010.
After seven hours of flying in a small and very loud floatplane, one of the first sensations that hit me upon arrival at Mushuanipi (Indian House [...]

Bill recorded 38 Swainson’s Thrush on the night of September 10-11.
Credit: Jeff Nadler
For those waiting to hear whether the predictions made by Bill Evans of a grand nocturnal migration of Boreal birds came true last week, we post below Bill’s update. Check out especially the thermal video image of nocturnally migrating birds– the birds look [...]

Here are some interesting comments I received from my last post about some of the early migrants I’ve been able to record at night above my house in Maine. You can see the original post here >
Michael O’Brien’s comments:
I’m interested in your assertion that American Robin is strictly a diurnal migrant. Perhaps that is true [...]

I started my automated recording station for the season here in Maine on Thursday night, April 1st. Although there were few calls each of the last three nights, the numbers increased a little each night from about 10 the night of the 1st to about 30 last night. You might recall I posted last spring [...]

Winter Wren
Credit: Tom Vezo
(David posting again on behalf of Jeff) I was waiting for the bus today outside my neighborhood coffee shop in Seattle when something caught my eye. Typically arriving a few minutes early to ensure I don’t miss my bus, I usually scan the headlines on the front pages of USA Today and [...]

I recently did a radio interview with Robin Young on her daily show Here and Now, on Boston public radio WBUR 90.9 FM. I mostly discussed the global importance of boreal forests and peatlands and their ability to sequester and store massive ammounts of carbon, but also mentioned some birds have adapted well to peatlands, [...]