Have you been hearing new birds? Spring and summer are the main seasons for singing birds, but the relative quiet of autumn can make certain sounds stand out as new migrants arrive. In the ...

There are lots of sparrows. Excepting birders, they get little play or press. I was mildly self-disgusted to scroll back through the roster of nearly 400 Dispatch columns I’ve written to date and see ...

The White-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys, passes through the Blue Water Area on its migration route every spring and fall. Since we are very near the northern boundary of its winter territory ...

We commonly think of migrating birds as those who leave their winter homes in Mexico and other warmer climates to fly north each spring to nest, either summering in our neighborhood (Hooded Orioles ...

Fall is here, and the voices that tell me so are those of the crowned sparrows. There are two of these birds: the white-crowned and golden-crowned sparrow. Both arrive here in September from their ...

The white-throated sparrow also has a close relative that is a little less common. The white-crowned sparrow is one of the more distinctive species in a family often unfairly dismissed as “little ...

A white-crowned sparrow alights on Thursday on a plant on the bluffs above the mouth of the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz. Depending on the season, this sparrow can be found throughout most of North ...

I’m visiting my son out in Fort Bragg, California this week. While walking along the craggy coast, lush and green with exotic spring wildflowers and equally exotic wildlife - oystercatchers and ...

A recent photo taken by Pattie Freeman shows several pine siskins eating seed from a seed cylinder. They are probably eating the sunflower chips contained therein. They most often eat nyger (thistle) ...

The dramatic reduction in automobile traffic noise in San Francisco during the COVID-19 lockdown has allowed a common songbird to sing softer, more elaborate songs that are more appealing to the ...

The usual suspects at the home seed feeder don’t change much until autumn arrives and migrant species begin to arrive to escape the chill of northern climates. As I watched the usual gathering of ...