Until I started taking a more serious interest in birding, to me a sparrow meant the ubiquitous house sparrow. A passer domesticus, rarely alone, was always at the feeders when I was a kid growing up in Ohio. Years later, I marveled at how the house sparrows thrived amid the skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan, flittingContinue reading “My little friends, the sparrows”
Category Archives: Backyard birds
The magnificent hummingbird
As the pandemic wore on last summer, I hung a hummingbird feeder from a portable metal stand outside the window where I set up my home office. The wind kept knocking the stand over. I managed to nick the stand with my lawn tractor one day, and to my great dismay the glass portion ofContinue reading “The magnificent hummingbird”
Naming our neighbors in nature
Like so many others keeping close to home since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, we’re paying much more attention to the creatures inhabiting and visiting our yard and neighborhood. We can’t resist naming some of them. I mentioned recently that we’ve named Aeneas and Dido the house wrens who’ve moved into in our backyardContinue reading “Naming our neighbors in nature”
On rose-breasted grosbeak watch, a mighty fine surprise
We’re in the second week of May, and I’ve been watching the reports of rose-breasted grosbeaks roll in from other birders nearby. No such luck here at home, even as I’ve camped out with my coffee and camera each morning, hoping one of them will arrive at our feeders. This afternoon as I passed byContinue reading “On rose-breasted grosbeak watch, a mighty fine surprise”
Home is where the house wrens are
Spring has sprung here in central New Jersey, and I’ve been on high alert for seasonal visitors who are due to arrive soon, some just passing through and others who will stay awhile. I was on the back patio the other day when I spotted what I was almost certain was a house wren checkingContinue reading “Home is where the house wrens are”
The first bird I identified on my own
As a kid growing up in northeast Ohio, I knew the basics of the birds that frequented our neighborhood. Mom always pointed them out, marveling at the cardinals and their song, tisk-tisking the raucous blue jays (“those bullies!”), and pointing with delight at the cute house wrens popping in and out of the birdhouse thatContinue reading “The first bird I identified on my own”
All hail the New Jersey state bird, the American goldfinch
The American goldfinch — the New Jersey state bird, dazzling with yellow in mating-season plumage — is not easily overlooked. I’ve lived 15 years in this state in two incarnations: six years in Union County in the northern tier, and the last nine in Mercer County in the central section. In all my north JerseyContinue reading “All hail the New Jersey state bird, the American goldfinch”
The Jersey Birder 