Birds Archives - Page 3 of 5 - Heartland Safari

Rump-on view of a Cedar Waxwing displaying all the colorful markings of this beautiful songbird. Slate-grey back with tailfeathers tipped in bright yellow. Red tips of secondary flight feathers peek out from folded wings. Soft yellow green breast, salmon-brown head and feather crest, and a rakish, black bandit-mask with thin white outline.

Berries Please: Cedar Waxwing

Updated October 9, 2023

On a cool morning in early October, Dave and I stopped to enjoy the soundscape on our morning walk. The crickets had center stage, but several birds weighed in as well. One high-pitched clear whistle followed by a high-pitched trill that sounded almost like a cricket came from what my Merlin Bird ID app told […]

Birds

Mourning dove the way Iowans usually see them, sitting on an overhead wire, out by the road. Gray-tawny bird with slender, slightly curved beak.

Sad and Soothing: Mourning Doves

Updated July 20, 2023

I’m sitting in my study with the windows open, listening to my favorite bird singing his love song. This bird is probably the first bird I ever was able to identify by sound because of its signature song—a low coo followed by a high note and two or three low coos. I found his song […]

Birds

Brown Thrasher. Brown songbird with a white breast striped with thin brown lines, gets a drink in a birdbath.

Champion Mimic: Brown Thrasher

Updated June 8, 2023

Early in the evening on a blustery April day, I heard a bird singing a melodious but changing song. He sang a phrase twice, then switched to another song. I had just been introduced to the song of the brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) and was ecstatic to actually capture its song on this afternoon. The […]

Birds

Large songbird with black head, white breast, red gorget and a stout, blunt beak. Rose Breasted Grosbeak.

Seed Cracker: Rose-Breasted Grosbeak

Updated June 1, 2023

On a lovely May morning Dave and I are strolling along the road when a beautiful song seems to be aimed right at us from a tree a short distance away. Its tone is kind of like a robin’s, but it starts its song with a clear whit-whit sort of whistle, and then follows it […]

Birds

A tiny, olive-drab Ruby Crowned Kinglet peers out from green foliage.

North American Royalty: Golden-Crowned and Ruby-Crowned Kinglets

Updated May 25, 2023

For several days in late April, I’ve heard kinglets in the trees. A golden-crowned kinglet (Regulus satrapa) one day, and a ruby-crowned kinglet (Regulus calendula) a few days later. The ruby-crowned song is loud, rapid and full of excitement. Their golden-crowned cousins sing more sedately and at a higher pitch. First of all, they are […]

Birds

Handsome black songbird with brown head, black eye and beak feeds in short grass

Easy Pickings: Brown-headed Cowbird

Updated May 22, 2023

On a morning walk, I hear a high-pitched whistle, and a rapid chatter seeming to come from the same tree. My Merlyn Bird ID tells me that what we have here is a brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater). He is shiny black on his body with a dull brown head. He’s courting the smaller, drab brown […]

Birds

Action photo of a Northern Flicker boosting itself out of a hole in a dead tree. Bright yellow flashes from the underside of its unfurling wing, as it shows its white breast with black dots.

Another Drummer: Northern Flicker

Updated April 13, 2023

There’s a lot of drumming going on in the trees on Owl Acres. Woodpeckers are staking out their territory and calling to potential mates. One of the drummers is a northern flicker (Colaptes auratus). Unlike Woody Woodpecker and all his cousins, the northern flicker is brown, not black. He does have a profusion of black […]

Birds

A European Starling takes flight. Wings spread, showing the tapered tips that give the bird its name. Brown bird with white mottling and a long, tapered beak.

Thank You, Shakespeare: Starlings

Updated April 6, 2023

There’s a racket going on inside the fireplace. This is the second time this spring. A bird has mistaken the chimney for a home, and, once it tumbled down that pipe, it can’t go back up. So it’s fluttering and bumping around in there trying to get out. After some attempts that sound like they’d […]

Birds

Red Tail Hawk in full flight, carrying a gray rat in its talons

The Hawkeye State: Red-Tailed Hawk

Updated March 30, 2023

On a bright sunny day, a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) sits surveying his domain from the top of the cupola on the barn. We see them everywhere—on top of utility poles, high up in trees, sitting on fence posts, even sitting on the cable barriers that run down the median on the interstate. They hunt […]

Birds

Northern cardinals have a short, stout bill, adapted for cracking seeds. This species is the only bright red bird with a crest.

Solo Duet: Northern Cardinal

Updated March 23, 2023

All winter, northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) have been brightening the landscape with their red plumage and their upward-rising whit-whit-whit calls followed by that descending pfew, Pfew call. Three or four pairs of them have been frequenting the bird feeder, lording it over the finches and chickadees. On this cold March morning, one is sitting on […]

Birds