busconews.com

by Neil A. Case

A telephone caller told me she and her husband had seen twelve or thirteen bald eagles below the dam on the Salamonie River one morning earlier this month. Most were perched in the trees along the river below the dam, she said, though a few were flying. And that wasn’t all the eagles they saw that morning. From the dam they had driven west along the river to its confluence with the Wabash River and along the way they had seen five more eagles. Then they drove east along the Wabash for several miles and saw five more eagles.

by Neil A. Case

An invasion of birds is defined in the “Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds,” as a “periodic southward influx into the U.S. from Canada and Alaska of birds that usually live year-round in the north.” There’s an invasion of birds in Florida this winter, an invasion of razorbills.

by Neil A. Case

I’ve become a modern birder. I’ve learned to use my computer to get on the Internet and check reports of rare and unusual bird sightings, birds seen in unexpected places. For example on the Internet I learned that there was a western grebe seen at Salamonie Reservoir last month. Salamonie is in Huntington and Wabash Counties, north-central Indiana. Western grebes nest in the northwestern states of the U.S. and winter farther south.

by Neil A. Case

There was a cowbird on one of my bird feeders a few days ago. Cowbirds are usually birds of warmer weather. Yet this one was on my feeder on a day when the temperature was twenty degrees. It was there as the usual winter visitors, black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, house finches, blue jays, a red-bellied and a downy woodpecker flew in and out.

by Neil A. Case

In “Birds of America” the black-capped chickadee is described as a “feathered small boy of the woods.” No reason is given for this description but to anyone who watches a black-capped chickadee there is no need for a reason. It’s obvious. This is a little bird, hardly bigger than a house wren, a little bird with white cheeks, a black cap and bib, a gray back, wings and tail that is ever active, ever calling, ever cheery it seems.