Birds Archives - Heartland Safari

A male Prairie Chicken displays at a lek. Tightly spaced brown and white stripes mark his wings and body. Large orange air sacs inflated to the shape and size of a hen’s egg stand out on both sides of his neck. Two tall feather tufts are erect over the top of his head, looking like rabbit ears. His short fan-shaped tail points straight up.

Lek Dancers: Prairie Chickens

Updated April 7, 2025

There’s a place in southwest Iowa where a most unusual display occurs each year between March and May. It’s the mating dance of the greater prairie chicken (AKA pinnated grouse (Tympanuchus cupido). Rather than pair-bonding like many birds do, prairie chickens have a lek form of mating. The females choose who to breed with, and […]

Ring Billed Gull in flight. White body, blue grey wings with black tips. Its bill is encircled by a distinctive black ring. The bird has the long, narrow wings of an active soarer.

Population Explosion: Ring-Billed Gulls

Updated March 24, 2025

When I think of gulls, I think of standing on the beach in North Carolina tossing bread to the seagulls and watching them compete for it. I don’t think of gulls on Owl Acres. In fact, there are 17 species of gulls that visit Iowa, the most common being the ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis). They […]

Birds

View out the front door at Owl Acres. The morning sun lights up a House Finch on the porch railing and a Canada Goose standing out in the yard. The Finch does not migrate. The Canada Goose migrates only as far as needed to find food and habitat.

Migration

Updated March 17, 2025

About a week ago, the wind was howling at up to 60 miles an hour, blowing snow and causing hundreds of car accidents. The juncos who usually hold forth under the bird feeder scurried to the porch where they sheltered out of the wind. An opossum found a protected corner of the porch and curled […]

Birds

Image attribution: 5 Bird wing types as described in the text. Each wing type equips its bird for its specialized flight regime e.g. soaring, maneuvering, fast flight, hovering etc.

Icarus Envy: Wings

Updated March 3, 2025

It’s cold outside! The dark-eyed juncos shelter on the porch when they’re not cleaning up under the bird feeder. They flap and flutter in consternation and fly away when I step out on the porch. Out there in the quiet day, sparrows and chickadees send their occasional calls into the winter air. They flit from […]

Birds

A skeleton of a bat against a black background. The wings and legs are spread, showing the same set of bones that make up a human’s arms and legs with five fingers and toes at the end of each limb.

Bones: Comparative Anatomy

Updated March 24, 2025

By Dr. Jessica LaPrice Dr. LaPrice teaches biology at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Recently I visited her at her university where she showed me a goat skeleton once used in a comparative anatomy class. It reminded me just how similar our skeletons are to Dave’s and Clancy’s, and even to that goat. […]

The mud and grass nest of a barn swallow sticks to the side of a joist in the shed

Grace and Beauty: Barn Swallow

Updated December 16, 2024

We have an old shed on Owl Acres where we keep firewood and the Farmall “A” tractor that Bryan uses for mowing. Inside the shed, up against one of the beams, is a carefully constructed nest. It’s made of mud and straw and has one side plastered against the beam. The nest was built in […]

Birds

A robin has built its nest braced between the downspout and red siding on the house next to the bedroom window

Many Strategies; Same Goals: Bird Nests

Updated December 2, 2024

Now that the leaves have fallen from the trees, it’s easier to see all the bird nests that served as home for a variety of birds last summer. They didn’t all build their nests in trees, though. A robin built one up in the corner of the house just outside the bedroom window. A Baltimore […]

Birds

Songbird sits on a sunflower bud. Indigo Bunting has a solid, deep blue color

Learning to Sing: Indigo Bunting

Updated August 4, 2024

A male indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea) arrived on Owl Acres in early May after a long nocturnal trek from the Caribbean. He decided to stay and began singing his song to attract a mate. I’ve thought that a bird’s song was something hard-wired into his brain, and therefore all indigo buntings should sound the same. […]

Birds

A slender songbird sits on a twig, backed by a blue sky and a puffy white cloud. Gray Catbird sings from his large repertoire.

Sitting Pretty: Gray Catbird

Updated May 27, 2024

A gray catbird added his song to the chorus on Owl Acres on May 5 of this year. He sat high in a tree in the “catbird seat” and called to all and sundry that he was here and ready to start courting. His repertoire of songs includes the mewing sound that gets him his […]

Birds

A pair of Baltimore Orioles sit on a bird feeder specially designed to attract them. It holds two small glass cups filled with grape jelly. Next to the jelly cups are two halves of an orange secured on spikes. The birds chow down on the fruit. We refill it once or twice a day.

Lordly Livery: Baltimore Oriole

Updated May 13, 2024

Last year in early May, a Baltimore oriole landed on the car in the driveway. He had just come back from the south and was looking for a place to call his own. He started singing to his reflection in the car window. His reflection didn’t sing back. He tried pecking at it, but something […]

Birds