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Image 11231
39 visits
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Image 10436
109 visits
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Image 10424
99 visits
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Image 10425
103 visits
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Image 10422
91 visits
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Image 10414
77 visits
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Image 10409
77 visits
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Image 10410
79 visits
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Image 10411
72 visits
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Image 10407
70 visits
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Image 10399
83 visits
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Image 10375
91 visits
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Image 10376
111 visits
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Bird watching a butterfly
209 visits
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Brown Cachalote
154 visits
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Chat-like Tyrant
164 visits
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Cow-bird
154 visits
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Bridges’s Wood-Hewer
160 visits
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White-Capped Tanager
161 visits
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White-banded Mocking-Bird
163 visits
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Many-coloured Ground Finch
160 visits
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Red-breasted Plant-cutter
159 visits
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Schulz's Dipper
153 visits
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Shrikes
1 Ochre-Headed Greenlet-Shrike
2 Deep-Billed Greenlet-Shrike
151 visits
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Frogs and Birds.
Black and White Ware. Diameter about 12 inches. Oldtown Ruin
118 visits
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Bird C occurs on a black and white bowl that measures ten inches in diameter, five and one-half inches in depth. The figure occupies the circular zone in the middle of the bowl and is enclosed by parallel lines which surround the bowl near the rim. The top of the head, which is globular, is white in color, the beak projecting and the eyes comparatively large. The body is likewise globular and is covered by a square geometrical design the details of which are considerably obscured by the hole in the middle of the jar. A number of parallel lines of unequal length, turned downward, hang from the rear of the body and form the tail. The long legs suggest a wading bird, and the widely extended claws point to the same identification.
352 visits
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The bird shown is different from any of the above and is distinguished readily by the four curved lines on the head suggesting the quail. The pointed tail is marked above and below with dentations, formed by a series of rectangular figures which diminish in size from body attachment to tip. The body itself is marked posteriorly with parallel lines, rectangular and curved figures suggesting wings.
343 visits
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The figure shown is represented by two designs, practically the same, repeated so far as appendages go, but quite different in the ornamentation of their bodies. One of these has the same geometrical figure on its body as on one of the quadruped pictures, the second has a different design. Both birds have wings outspread as if in flight, in which the feathers are well drawn in detail, especially the wing on the side turned toward the observer. That on the opposite side is simply uniformly black. The feathers of its companion on the other side of the bowl are indicated by parallel lines. The tail is long and forked at the extremity, suggesting a hawk, and is decorated for two-thirds of its length with cross-hatched and parallel lines.
348 visits
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Bird B is painted on the interior of a food bowl of black and white ware, ten inches in diameter by five inches deep. Its body is oval, the head erect and undecorated, and the tail twisted from a horizontal into a vertical plane as is customary in representation of lateral views of birds from Pueblo ruins.
346 visits
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Girl Feeding some wild birds
192 visits
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Image 9410
114 visits
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Image 9400
96 visits
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Image 9401
102 visits
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Image 9395
124 visits
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Image 9396
125 visits
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Image 9388
103 visits
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Carrier pigeons in a battle
140 visits
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Image 9378
161 visits
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Image 9379
95 visits
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Image 9375
97 visits
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Image 9376
82 visits
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Image 9302
90 visits
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Image 9182
157 visits
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Image 9179
96 visits
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Image 9109
404 visits
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Image 9061
526 visits
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One morning, having come to the field quite early, I grew tired of my play before my grandmother had ended her work. “I want to go home,” I begged, and I began to cry. Just then a strange bird flew into the field. It had a long curved beak, and made a queer cry, cur-lew, cur-lew.
I stopped weeping. My grandmother laughed.
“That is a curlew,” she said.
484 visits
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Ostrich
"What time she lifteth up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider."—Job xxxix. 18.
145 visits
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Image 7634
215 visits
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MERGANSER
Mergus merganser americanus Cassin
Other Names.—Shelldrake; Goosander; Fish Duck; Sawbill; American Merganser.
Description.—One of the largest of the ducks; bill long and narrow, with teeth on both mandibles. Adult male: Head and upper neck greenish black; lower neck, patches in wings, and underparts white; belly suffused with salmon-pink, noticeable in some individuals; back, shoulders, and wings black; rump and tail gray; bill and feet red; eyes bright red. Adult female: Head, with two large crests, and neck rich brown, marked with white areas in front of eye and on chin and upper throat; upperparts ashy gray; patch in wings, and breast and belly white. Length: 25 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A fairly common and regular migrant along the larger waterways and sometimes on the smaller streams from about March 15 to April 20 and from October 1 to December 1. It frequently occurs in winter when the water is free of ice.
The mergansers are all expert fishermen and like to fish in swift water. They dive easily and their serrate bills help them to hold their slippery prey.
The female Merganser is difficult to distinguish from the female Red-breasted Merganser; in the present species, however, the white area on the chin and upper throat is sharply defined, whereas in the Red-breasted species the chin and throat are not white, but of a brownish color, paler than the rest of the head.
327 visits
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DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT
Phalacrocorax auritus auritus (Lesson)
Other Name.—Shag.
Description.—Four toes all webbed together; bill long and strongly hooked at tip; tail stiff and moderately long; plumage thick and firm. 16Adults in breeding plumage: Glossy greenish black, save on back which is dark gray, each feather being margined with lighter gray; two filamentous tufts of black feathers on back of head; neck with thin sprinkling of silken white feathers during period of courtship; bill blackish, marked at base with dull yellow; sack under bill yellow; eyes bright green. Immature and adult in winter (the plumage usually seen in Pennsylvania): Without crests, and whole plumage brownish black, somewhat mottled beneath, and with light area on throat; eyes grayish green, not bright green. Length: About 30 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A migrant found principally along the larger water-ways from about March 20 to May 10 and from September 15 to November 15. It is occasionally seen in winter when the water is free of ice.
234 visits
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BLACK TERN
Chlidonias nigra surinamensis (Gmelin)
Other Name.—Marsh Tern.
Description.—Size small; tail short, forked. Adults in summer: Head and underparts black, save under tail-coverts, which are white; upperparts gray; bill and feet red. Adults in winter and immature: White, with pearl-gray back and wings and dusky spots on head; bill and feet dusky. Length: 10 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—Irregular as a migrant throughout the Commonwealth; more frequently seen than other Terns about marshes and on small bodies of water; usually seen between April 25 and September 30. Though it is thus to be seen in midsummer irregularly, it is not known to nest in Pennsylvania at the present time.
261 visits
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COMMON TERN
Sterna hirundo Linnæus
Other Names.—Sea Swallow; Striker; Wilson’s Tern.
Description.—Smaller than a gull, with long, deeply forked tail. Adults in summer: Top of head glossy black; rest of body pearl-gray, save throat, sides of head, and tail, which are white, the outer tail-feathers with outer webs pearl-gray; bill red, with black tip; feet orange-red. Adults in winter: Similar, but with forepart of head and underparts white, and bill blackish. Immature: Similar to adults in winter, but plumage considerably washed with brownish, lesser wing-coverts slaty, and tail short, though forked. Length: 15 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A rather irregular migrant.
235 visits
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Other Names.—Wild Goose; Honker.
Description.—Size large, about that of a domestic Goose, with about the same proportions; sexes similar. Head and neck black, a broad band under eye, and across throat, white; upperparts brownish gray, the feathers margined with a lighter shade, giving a somewhat scaled appearance; breast and sides gray-brown, more or less as in back; belly white; rump and tail black; upper tail-coverts white. Feet and bill black; eyes dark brown. Length: About 3 feet.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A regular and sometimes common migrant from mid-February to early April and from October 15 to November 30, sometimes occurring in winter, even when ice covers the lakes, at which times the great birds stand about on the frozen surface. As a rule, Canada Geese do not stop long in Pennsylvania; most flocks do not linger here at all, merely passing over.
300 visits
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Other Names.—Sea Gull; Gray Gull.
Description.—Sexes similar. Adults in summer: White, with pearl-gray back and wings; tips of wings black with white spots; bill yellow with orange spot near tip of lower mandible; feet pale pink; eyes pale yellow. Adults in winter: Similar, with gray spots on head and neck. Immature birds: Dark gray-brown at a distance, with blackish bill and dark brown eyes; in the hand the upper-parts are found to be dark gray, considerably marked with buffy. The acquiring of fully adult plumage requires several moults. Birds which are not fully adult may have black-tipped, white tails. Young in their first flight plumage are darker than older individuals. Length: 24 inches.
256 visits
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Gavia immer immer (Brünnich)
Other Names.—Great Northern Diver; Loom.
Description.—Size large; bill long and sharp; tail very short, with legs sticking out behind. Adults in spring: Upperparts black, with bluish and greenish reflections; patches on throat and sides of neck streaked with white; back and wings marked regularly with rows of white squares; underparts silvery white; sides black, spotted finely with white; eyes red. Immature birds and adults in winter: Upperparts blackish, margined with gray and without white spots; throat and neck grayish; underparts white. Length: about 30 inches.
221 visits
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Other Names.—Dabchick; Hell-Diver; Dipper; Dipper-Duck (erroneous).
Description.—Sexes similar. Adults in summer: Glossy, dark brown above; throat black; neck, breast, and sides grayish, washed with brownish and indistinctly mottled with blackish; lower breast and belly glossy white; black band across bill. Immature birds and adults in winter: Similar, but without black on throat and bill. Length: 13½ inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—Rare as a summer resident, chiefly because 12there are so few lakes and marshes suited to its nesting; fairly common as a migrant from April 1 to May 15 and from August 25 to October 30.
Nest.—Flat, composed of decaying vegetation, floating among water-weeds or anchored by plants which are attached to the bottom. Eggs: 4 to 7, dull white, usually so heavily stained as to be brownish in appearance.
261 visits
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Other Names.—Dipper; Hell-Diver.
Description.—Neck long; no tail-feathers; toes flat and broad, feet at rear of body; sexes similar. Adult in spring: Large, puffy head, black, with stripe and silken plumes behind eye buffy; plumage of back blackish edged with gray; secondaries white; neck, breast, and sides chestnut; belly silvery white; eyes bright pink, the pupil encircled with a white ring. Immature birds and adults in winter: Grayish black above, silvery white beneath, grayish on the throat, with white cheek-patches which nearly meet on nape. Length: 13½ inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A migrant throughout the Commonwealth from March 20 to May 10 and from October 1 to November 30; occasional in winter when water is free of ice.
243 visits
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Image 7017
261 visits
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Image 6736
239 visits
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Image 6330
295 visits
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As you doubtless know, however, some young birds, like young rooks and sparrows, thrushes and skylarks, when they leave the egg, are perfectly bare, blind, and helpless, and have to be fed and brooded by their mothers for a long time. Other young birds, like young owls, falcons, and hawks, also leave the egg blind and helpless, but their bodies are covered with long woolly down.
380 visits
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When young birds live in the open, as on shingly beaches, then their down is mottled. How perfectly this harmonises with the surrounding stones only those who have tried to find young terns, or young ringed plover, for example, can tell.
368 visits
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The fact that many young birds which are quite helpless are now reared in nurseries on the ground, as in the case of young skylarks, is a fact of interest; for it shows that the parents have chosen this nesting site comparatively recently, and are of course unable to lay large eggs, which shall produce active young, like young chickens, at will. They have acquired the habit, so to speak, of laying small eggs, and cannot alter it by changing their nesting-place.
378 visits
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When young birds live in the open, as on shingly beaches, then their down is mottled. How perfectly this harmonises with the surrounding stones only those who have tried to find young terns, or young ringed plover, for example, can tell.
352 visits
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The instrument called Sho is blown with the mouth, and corresponds to the Chinese Cheng or Mouth Organ. The pipes are made of wood, with reed mouthpieces, and the notes are made by stopping the holes with the fingers. In some ways the construction is like that of a harmonium, but it is much more troublesome to play, and the performer, having to use his own breath to make the sounds, cannot sing at the same time. Unlike a harmonium also, it is difficult to keep in tune, and Miss Bird, a well-known traveller, tells of a concert at which the performer was obliged to be continually warming his instrument at a brazier of coals placed near. Some years ago a Japanese Commission was appointed to consider which of the national instruments were most suitable for use in schools; it rejected the Sho because its manufacture was troublesome and its tuning even worse.
603 visits
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Canada Geese
269 visits
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Image 6066
323 visits
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Image 6060
398 visits
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his migration must have been an unusually large one. It has been suggested that the Glacial period had some connection with it, and there can be little doubt, as we shall see later on, that a change of climate probably brought about this great Siberian invasion of Europe. But other causes might tend in the same direction, such as want of sufficient food after a few years of great increase of any particular species. It is not known to what we owe the periodic visits of the Central Asiatic Sandgrouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus), but certain it is that immense flocks of these birds invade Europe from time to time at the present day, just as those mammals may have done in past ages.
250 visits
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It is probable that the famous Great Auk (Alca impennis) also was a typical Arctic species. Its range extended to both sides of the Atlantic. In Newfoundland and on the coast of Iceland it is known to have been met with in considerable numbers within historic times; and no doubt, like all Arctic species, it extended farther southwards at a more remote period.
258 visits
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Bird in tree frame
308 visits
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Birds
308 visits
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Birds frame
349 visits
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Eagle
238 visits
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Eagle
291 visits
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Bald Eagle
295 visits
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Eagle Head
338 visits
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Eagle Hunting
299 visits
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Continental Bank Eagle
326 visits
