Greensboro Birds

Short answer: Lots of them, and, no, you shouldn’t! There’s a lot of recent chatter about pokeweed on both the Carolinas birding list and the bluebird listserv. Probably because the berries and plant stalks are turning vivid purple and fuchsia right about now. Birders are asking which birds, if any, eat the juicy berries of [...]

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A robin has been sitting on a clutch of eggs high atop a broken maple that had sprouted new branches in a perfect nest-holding configuration. Unfortunately for the robin, black rat snakes are fantastic tree climbers, and this one easily found its way into her nest yesterday afternoon. What a scene it was!

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The dry creek is getting more interesting. Or “junked up,” as Forrest says. We’ve built two simple bridges over it, with one more on our to-do list, and we’ve planted a ton of perennials, shrubs, knockout roses, our apple and fig trees, some other stuff, and a few annuals for good measure. The yarrow garden [...]

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I spent the past week watching an American Robin build this nest in a poison oak-covered tree near my office window. (Fighting the war against poison oak is how I spend my spare time, by the way. By the looks of my skin, I’m losing.) Looks like I’ll have plenty of incentive to keep an [...]

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I read in the latest edition of Cornell’s Birdscope that this appears to be a big year for American Robins. (Did you know that people in the 1800s ate them? Anyway… ) Our lawns and parks have been teeming with them, and now we have baby Robins flopping all over the place. This little fledgling [...]

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When people learn about my little birding addiction, they often ask me, “Where do you find them? I never see any birds.” Birds are everywhere, often hiding in plain sight, like this American Robin sitting on her nest. I spotted her in a bush right next to a path where plenty of people walk. She’s [...]

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This sassy young American Robin fledged from its nest today and is chirping up a storm. Robin siblings fledge on the same day (meaning, they leave the nest for the first time together). They hop around and stretch their muscles while the parents continue to find food and feed them, one by one. If you [...]

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We are absolutely inundated by Robins. Everywhere I look there are swarms of them in the grass, in the trees, duking it out for nesting sites, and filling the morning and evening air with their various songs and chirps. In the words of Josh, “Robins are good-lookin’ birds. They’re highly underappreciated.” Robins are also patient [...]

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