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Eciton vs. Pheidole: A Dramatic Ant Raid at Los Amigos Biological Station
I’ve just returned home from a four-week trip to Peru, my first honest-to-goodness vacation to this amazing country. I have traveled in Peru apart from leading tours a few times, but in those “early...
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The 2021-22 Christmas Bird Count
I participated on three Christmas Bird Counts this year – lower than my typical average of seven to nine, because I was away for 12 days for my Oaxaca at Christmastime tour in the middle of the period....
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Bountiful Brazilian Beetles
My recent 18-day tour to Brazil may have been more about mushrooms, but there’s a lot to look at in the Amazon rainforest. These beetles I photographed below are a good example. Most people have heard...
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Mushrooming in Brazil
I’ve just returned home from an 18-day private tour with a single client to Brazil, from southern Amazonia to the northern Pantanal, crossing the great watershed divide between the central Atlantic...
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Calliope Corner Garden Update – Not Winter Yet
When I came home from three weeks in Brazil earlier this week, I was expecting (and sort of hoping) that the Pacific Northwest would be winterish already. With the garden all dormant and harvests...
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WINGS Tour of Peru: Rainforest Lodges of the Madre de Dios
I’ve been home just two days from my two wonderful tours to southeastern Peru, and I while I was excited to see how my garden has progressed (or aged, as the case may be) as fall approaches, I was also...
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Back in the Saddle Again: Birding and Natural History of SE Peru 1
I’m leading my first international tours since the start of the pandemic, and everything is going exceedingly well. The first tour just finished a week ago, where we visited the Machu Picchu and the...
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A Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow Irruption
This blog isn’t dead yet – I’m still here and do have lots to share. I have much that I could have been blogging about these past three months – so much that the idea of catching up seems too...
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Answer to Sound Quiz
The Sound Quiz I posted the day before yesterday is a Purple Finch.This was given by an adult male Purple Finch, which had been perched next to the female, and both were giving call notes. The female...
View ArticleA Song Quiz
I posted this song quiz to Oregon Birders Online, and it's been fun to see how different people hear it. I'll add the ID and my analysis tomorrow.I recorded it in my Eugene back yard on the morning of...
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A Visitor from Canada in the Brush Pile
On the bright and frosty morning of March 30, I spotted what is quite likely the most unusual bird I have seen in my yard so far (having lived here in north Eugene for a year and seven months). The...
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Nocturnal Duck Commutes: Is a Flying Duck a Sitting Duck?
I think I’ve finally solved a huge mystery that has been bugging me for nearly a year. The very foundation of the scientific world is shaking, and the journal Nature is begging to publish my...
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A Willamette Riparian Jewel: Hileman Landing County Park
I’ve known about this park since shortly after I moved to Eugene, and though it’s only 30 minutes by bicycle from my front door, I only finally visited it weekend before last. My friend Thomas said it...
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A Murmuration of Ring-billed Gulls and Hybrid Ducks
This blog post is a bit out-of-date, but I’m still gobsmacked every time I watch my short video. Monday, January 11 was my last day with a rental car, so I decided to explore the Willamette Valley of...
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A Bird In A Gilded Cage
This week I auditioned to join the Eugene Gay Men’s Chorus. My tour guiding schedule has prevented me from joining any chorus for the past decade. In the late 90’s and early aughts I still hadn’t built...
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The Christmas Bird Count season ended January 5th. But wait – there’s one more!
Pleasant Hill Proto-CBC – January 10, 2021This past weekend, at personal request, several teams of some 15-20 birders helped Alan Contreras test a new CBC circle he is considering proposing to National...
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Eugene Christmas Bird Count, January 3, 2021
The Eugene CBC is now my “home count,” as I live just 2.3 miles from the circle center (a CBC circle is 7.5 miles in radius). Last year I was in Brazil, so I missed it during my first winter in this...
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Coquille Valley Christmas Bird Count
I participated on this wonderful southern Oregon coastal CBC on January 2 this year. It has the potential to have the highest species count in the state, but not with the kind of brutal wind we had...
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A Break to Chase CBC Rarities on 12/28
I decided to give the two Long-billed Curlews found by Barb Combs the day before on the Brownsville CBC a search. It’s a rare bird any time of year in the Willamette Valley, but there are exceedingly...
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Brownsville Christmas Bird Count
I did the Brownsville Christmas Bird Count on December 27, a back-up date after heavy rains a week earlier made it unsafe, not to mention unbirdable. If you’re not from these parts, you might be...
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