Posts by Tina Mitchell
American Robin-Nature’s Troubadours If you have ever lived somewhere that American Robins breed, a spring without their bright, lilting “cheerily, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up” song lacks something magical. Yet…
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Red Shouldered Hawk-our fearless buteo If you live in a Red-shouldered Hawk’s territory, you know it. (If you aren’t sure, you most likely don’t.) Even non-bird-oriented people can’t ignore…
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The Bushtit, San Diego County’s smallest songbird, is a long-tailed, effervescent, beady-eyed wisp of a thing that would easily go unnoticed if it led a solitary life—which it most definitely…
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Bird Names for Birds Wilson Warbler Leucadia Photo by Steve Brad I remember my first one. Bright yellow underneath, yellow-olive back and wings. Striking black cap. “What is that bird?”…
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Small but Mighty— The Northern Saw-whet Owl Small but Mighty— The Northern Saw-whet Owl The Northern Saw-whet Owl is a small owl (a mere eight inches tall) with a streaked…
Read MoreHappy as a Lark…Believe Me
A cloudy, blustery, cold December day at the foot of the Colorado Rockies and the three of us were doing the Christmas Bird Count. As my husband drove slowly, our…
Read MoreThe Hermit Thrush
For five years, my husband and I covered a Breeding Bird Survey route in Colorado’s high country. One morning during breeding season, starting ½ hour before dawn on a 24.5-mile…
Read MoreWell Worth the Search— Lewis’s Woodpecker What bird climbs trees like a woodpecker but feeds mostly by acrobatically sallying forth from a perch or circling high in the air to…
Read MoreThe Northern Shoveler
As a medium-sized duck, the Northern Shoveler seems just too small for its preposterously large, flat, broad-tipped bill. A paint pallet on webbed feet, the male’s breeding plumage (September through…
Read MoreThe Western Bluebird— Carrying the Sky Above and Reflecting the Earth Below At the wildlife rehabilitation center, I grabbed a dish of fresh mealworms and headed to an outdoor aviary.There,…
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