Backyard Birding

For the first time in the nearly seven years I’ve lived in this house, birds have nested on my front porch. Not one nest, but two: a robin and a mourning dove. I’ve long expected mourning doves to realize that the tops of the porch–roof support columns are wide enough for a nest, but it never happened until now, and, in fact, it was the robins who chose […]

I’ll always enjoy the coziness of wintertime, but nothing rivals the anticipation of emerging bulbs and plants awakening in the flower beds in my yard come springtime. Last spring, when the pandemic effectively eliminated all of my 2020 travel, I turned to yardwork and improving the “birdiness” of my plants and flowers to bolster my

This spring has been rife with reports from backyard birders spotting finches and other feeder birds suffering from red, swollen eyes—the telltale sign of avian conjunctivitis. Bird Watcher’s Digest columnist and wildlife rehabilitator Julie Zickefoose has been treating birds with mycoplasma for many years, and she reports that this is the worst spring she’s ever