Tag: Bird

A Bird Hitting the Window

A bird hitting the window with a heartbreaking thud startles me out of my complacency. Imagine the thoughts of the bird flying with joy through the summer air. Only to be struck like a softball by an invisible bat. In the catalog of unexpected events that life may bring us ( a bite from an otherw...

Building Flappy Bird from Scratch using C++ and SDL: A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction Before we delve into the details, let’s understand the essence of our game, Flappy Bird. It revolves around a bird that the player controls by tapping (or in our case, clicking). The objective is to navigate the bird through gaps between vertical pipes without colliding. Get...

Bird Watching

My thoughts on seagulls are probably the same as yours. Loud, annoying, make you feel guilty for not feeding them at the beach, and then steal your food when you’re not looking. But for the past couple of years, a seagull couple has built its nest on the roof of the apartment building oppos...

The Chickadee: Nature’s Secret Genius Bird-Brain

Chickadees are smarter than their tiny heads might indicate. The round little genus of birds has long been a delight for birders, but, more recently, they’ve become a fascinating study species for behavioral scientists, too! Previously, I wrote on crow intelligence in Crows Aren’...

Flaco is as free as a bird, for better or worse

For nine months, Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl that escaped from the Central Park Zoo, was remarkably easy to find. He favored a clearing on the northern side of the park with log piles that housed plentiful rats, and he often roosted in a nearby tree overlooking the joggers and bicyclists on East D...

Bird Spotlight-White Breasted Nuthatch

We were fortunate to have a visit from this wonderful bird, which surely signaled the beginning of Spring here in Central NY State. I very seldom get the chance to get a good photo of this bird. The Intriguing White Breasted Nuthatch These birds are fun to watch. If you’ve seen them you ...

The Boys Who Loved Birds

“In this area you should go just behind me,” the stout man says, the th of his this buzzing like a bee. Then, as if to reassure me, he adds, “I’ve been here before, with other colleagues and journalists, and no one died.” I’ve traveled here, to...

Got Birds? Meet the VIPs of My Backyard Bird Bar

Welcome to my avian paradise. Who knew that a few innocent bird seeds would turn my backyard into the hottest bird bar in town? There I was, sprinkling birdseed around my yard, aiming for Snow White vibes — then, the word got out. And all of a sudden, my tranquil backyard lanai became an avian...

Some Beautiful Bird Pictures

Over the years, I have taken pictures of several thousand birds from hundreds of species. Let me share some. Osprey are great fishing birds. I often see them devouring fish perched on a tree branch or poles. This was near a fishing lake on a hot summer noon. When we think of crows, charcoal-bl...

Using Multimodal ChatGPT to Recognize Bird Species from Images

This report describes part of an experiment that tested ChatGPT’s ability to identify bird species from images. This report provides a case study of ChatGPT’s new image capabilities [1]. I wanted to see how ChatGPT’s image recognition performance for birds could be improved by p...

Bihu Bird Count: Analysing collaborative counting

Bihu Bird Count (BBC) is an triannual event conducted by Assam Bird Monitoring Network. As the name suggests, the bird count is conducted during Bihu. As we head towards Kati Bihu, we are launching the results of previous bird count — Bohag Bihu Bird Count. But what exactly is a bird count ? ...

Embracing Bird Watching: A Gateway to Nature’s Wonders

I like to enjoy my morning coffee on my back patio where I have the benefit of fresh air and bright sunshine first thing in the morning. Over the past summer I have noticed that my coffee time has been shared by a new neighbor, a red tailed Hawk. Typically this magnificent and ever watchful creature...

Eat. Sleep. Bird. Repeat.

In my previous blog post, The Curious Case of Contentment, I had called out this probable scenario — “As we see off the monsoon showers and await the arrival of our migratory friends, the next few month will once again be filled with birding action. Will it make sense to then contin...

How are bird migrations visualized?

Bird migration is the annual, large scale movement of birds from locations of lower food and nesting resources to locations with higher resources. Bird migration is important to study because it gives us insights on bird movements, their behavior, and relevant concepts such as bird evolution, climat...

Diary of A Bird Watcher Daily Log #3

Hello everyone, hope you all are doing well. Unfortunately, today I won’t be able to go out birding. However, I didn’t want to leave you completely without something related to this fascinating hobby. Below I will share with you a few more YouTube channels that specialize in live cameras...

June 2019 | Feminist Bird Club

The Feminist Bird Club was started in October of 2016 by Molly Adams, when she piqued her friends’ interest in what she was doing on the outskirts of NYC during fall migration. When a female jogger was murdered in Queens near a hot spot where Molly would often go birding solo, she felt compell...

Diary of A Bird Watcher Daily Log #1

So, I have decided to take up a new hobby. As you probably already guessed from the title, I have become a bird watcher. Well, technically I haven’t started bird watching yet, but I plan to make it a daily ritual and I plan to bring you along with me. Would you like that? Each day that I go...

164th HBP Bird Walk at Uma Maheshwaram

Uma Maheshwaram (also known as Maheshwaram and Umamaheshrum) is a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva in Telangana, India. It is in the picturesque Nallamala forest range around 130 kilometers away from Hyderabad on the Hyderabad-Srisailam highway. It is atop the hi...

168th Bird Walk at Manjeera Dam

Manjeera Wildlife Sanctuary is a riverine wetland 50 km northwest of Hyderabad in Medak district. It is a place with a good number of resident and migratory birds, in addition to being home for the Marsh Crocodile Crocodylus palustris. It is recognized internationally as an Important Bird ...

Bird + Observability = Obirdsability?

Nature television shows were a regular form of entertainment for my family while I was growing up. I had access to brilliant educational content like National Geographic, Animal Planet and PBS in their heyday; it was before reality TV took off, the formula was still simple. Shows were centered aroun...

Calling All Bird Lovers: We’re Obsessed With This Identification App

Birds are back. I don’t mean in a migratory sense; I mean in popularity. Since 2020, birding has been on the rise and has proved to be more than a fad. Everyone I chat with these days seems to be captivated by corvids, wowed by wood ducks, and obsessed with owls. There’s no end t...

Finding Joy in a Bird ID App

What it is: Merlin essentially catalogs and helps identify birds in your area based on their looks and their songs or calls. I use the sound ID option; it works just like any audio recorder in your phone. Just hit the sound record button and let it rip for a few minutes at a time to see what you hea...

My Best Bird Photos Over Last Year

Over the past year, I have seen many different species of birds visit my backyard garden here in Central Texas. Many unique and colorful feathered friends have paid me a visit throughout the seasons of 2022. Therefore, I have decided to post some of my best pictures of birds over the last year. #...

I Was Once a Bird

Although I never participated formally in a group, I was always interested in watching birds. I bought a book identifying birds and high powered binoculars to get a better look. I made a list of the different birds I saw: robins, goldfinches, cardinals, sparrows, doves, nothing exotic. Birds you may...

The Present Art of Bird Watching

The drive was quick but everlong as I felt my arms and hands extend way past the boundaries of my body. I was disassociating…again. Most days, I was. Derealization peppered in, it felt more like the world around me was tucked away in Hope County, like in that video game we just played. But I ...

Dan’s Almost Daily Journal-I Observed Two Unusual Bird Species in My Yard

Welcome back. It’s been almost a month since I posted an article in my daily journal. Maybe I should change the name to Dan’s Once in a While Journal. I’ve been busy as usual with this and that. I have been looking through the seeds catalogs, continuing to watch birds and participa...

Carol of the birds: A Christmas Bird Count story

My first Christmas Bird Count was a few decades ago in the hot desert that separates Arizona and California at Imperial National Wildlife Refuge. The Colorado River seemed to narrow and fade by the hour, but at sunrise, the birds were heavily at play. Birds were my daily chorus, my compani...

Early Bird -Session 3

Week three ended with another task in the Early Bird workshop. As usual, this Wednesday was a sharing session, and I shared my observations on pigeons. This Saturday we have a new topic on bird behavior. We had an activity in class where the teacher shared videos on birds and we had t...

Was the Dodo Bird Really a Dodo?

First, a little background on these odd birds. The dodo was endemic only to Mauritius, an island east of Madagascar. Based on fossil remains, the dodo was slightly over 3 feet tall, and may have weighed up to 39 pounds. Regardless of their exact height or weight, we are sure they were far from small...

Once in a Lifetime Bird

I stood with a crowd of curious spectators at a perfectly mundane boat ramp. We must have been a strange sight, all peering out across the cold, steel-gray water, ignoring the gulls wheeling by. I did not fit in. I had no tripod, no telephoto lens, no binoculars. I had even dragged my small child...

Birds Through Words: Capturing Moments in Bird Photography

I have been sifting through my extensive collection of bird photographs, and find myself facing the challenge of translating these visual memories into written narratives. While sharing an image is straightforward — mentioning the location and adding a brief paragraph — crafting a mor...

Some People Take Webinars To Learn How To Recognize Bird Songs

Iwalked out of the bakery with a baguette, a scoop of country bread and three chocolate pastries. There is a certain advantage to living across the street from one of the best bakeries in your area. Well, it’s not really an advantage if you want to keep your figure and parade on the beach in y...

The Lightning Bird, The Hamerkop

The bird is commonly named the Hamerkop. It is an Afrikaans name directly translated to Hammerhead. This is as a result of the bird having a head…you guessed it, shaped like a hammer. It is near-endemic to Africa occurring South of the Sahara desert down towards the Southernmost point of Sout...

Bird of the Day

This male Sahul Sunbird digs into the neighbour’s Costus for insects and pollen. This species was formerly known as the Olive-backed Sunbird, ranging from Myanmar and southern China to Queensland. But a taxonomic rethink recognises that the Olive-backed Sunbird is actually a cluster of closely...

On Becoming Bird Enthusiasts

What a day it was driving to known bald eagle nests around Guntersville Lake in northern Alabama. We have been obsessed with bald eagles ever since we saw our first one at Seven Pillars Nature Preserve in Peru, Indiana on the Mississinewa River about nine or ten years ago. They are so grand and g...

Peyote Bird

It is said that Leonard Crow Dog called the Anhinga the greatest symbol of the Native American Church. And if you’ve had the privilege of viewing any NAC artwork, you’ve no doubt seen the bird represented in vivid color illustrating an obvious prominence in belief and ceremony. The An...

So this is who’s dirtying the bird bath!

Those of us who regularly feed our garden birds are acutely aware of the importance of offering garden visitors clean and fresh water. To that end, we all keep a close eye on birdbaths that all too often become polluted with leaves and other autumnal detritus at this time of year. So we could do wit...

Bird lovers cry foul over feather post on social media

Talk about getting their feathers ruffled. Several people on Facebook bombarded a woman with criticism after she posted the picture of an eagle feather on a Colorado nature photography page on Monday. Turns out, it’s illegal to possess an eagle feather unless you are a Native American perso...

The Mysterious Opium Bird

The exact origins of the Opium Bird are difficult to pinpoint, as its presence is found in the myths and legends of many cultures. Some scholars believe that the bird’s origins can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia, where it was depicted in art and literature as a symbol of fertility and a...

TOP Failed Wonders: The Silver Bird That Never Flew

Have you ever imagined a world where New York could have been bombed from the stratosphere during World War II? Meet the Silver Bird, a Nazi wonder weapon that aimed to do just that. Dreamt up by Austrian engineer Eugen Sänger and his mathematician wife, Irene, this rocket-powered bomber was de...