Bird of the Week

Common Loon, Gavia immer Bill Rowe A loon is a big swimming bird with a slightly prehistoric look about it. There are five species worldwide, quite different from anything else—ducks, grebes, whatever—and forming a family of their own, Gaviidae. As a…

Golden-crowned Kinglet, Regulus satrapa Bill Rowe All over the northern hemisphere, there are little birds like this one; ours are called “kinglets” while the Old World species are called “goldcrests” and “firecrests.” Most of them tend to breed in coniferous forest but…

Northern Pintail, Anas acuta Bill Rowe Of all the many ducks that migrate through the Midwest, spring and fall, the Northern Pintail is one of the classiest, with its handsome color scheme (male only) and its elegant, long-necked silhouette in flight.…

Orange-crowned Warbler, Leiothlypis celata Bill Rowe It’s mid-October, and the warblers are mostly gone, with a few exceptions: some individual stragglers, the throngs of late-migrating Yellow-rumped Warblers—and the less abundant Orange-crowned Warbler, which peaks in October and may be seen on…

Pied-billed Grebe, Podilymbus podiceps Bill Rowe Within any given class of living things, the first big subdivisions are the orders. Thus, among the class Aves, birds that belong to different orders are widely separated in evolutionary terms, i.e., not closely related to each other.…

Chipping Sparrow, Spizella passerina Bill Rowe The Chipping Sparrow, just about the epitome of a “cute little bird,” is one of those standard, widespread species that we all need to be familiar with, as we are sure to find them at…

Broad-winged Hawk, Buteo platypterus Bill Rowe One of the major spectacles that birders can watch for, or even travel to see, is the migration of the Broad-winged Hawk. This small buteo is a summertime inhabitant of mature forests across much of…

Sabine’s Gull, Xema sabini Bill Rowe This week we introduce a bird that is a rarity in the Midwest: a handsome little Arctic gull named after a distinguished Irish scientist and naturalist, Edward Sabine, who apparently pronounced his name to rhyme…

Eastern Phoebe, Sayornis phoebe Bill Rowe So far, this series has included three of our common flycatchers, or “tyrannids” (family Tyrannidae), each representing a different genus. Another common one, representing a fourth genus, is the Eastern Phoebe, a plain but distinctive…

Chestnut-sided Warbler, Setophaga pensylvanica Bill Rowe The Midwest is rich in warblers: besides the ones that nest here, there are many more that occur only on migration, spring and fall, as they pass through en route to their breeding grounds farther…