Kathryn Peiman

Introduction When I think about woodpeckers, I mentally picture black-and-white birds with perhaps some red or yellow splashed about somewhere. Lewis’s woodpecker, honestly, doesn’t look like it should be a woodpecker at all. It looks like it should be a tropical species with its pink and red colors, almost reminiscent of a swallow on steroids. […]

Introduction There seems to be a plethora of black-and-white woodpeckers in North America! Some have specialized, some have diverged, and some still look like each other. Nuttall’s woodpecker is another one of these confusing similar-looking species, and yet surprisingly, their habitat association is the most researched part of their biology. Sometimes it can be easy

Woodpeckers are such an interesting group of birds. Just the thought of them spending the day hammering away against hard trees makes my head hurt, and these birds do it every day, for their whole lives. American three-toed woodpeckers, with their sleek black side profile, look like they were sprinkled with white powder on their

Black-backed woodpeckers are northern birds and are specialists of burned forests. When trees are dead or dying (because of fire or infestation by mountain bark beetles), several other species of beetles (especially in the families Buprestidae and Cerambycidae) lay their eggs on these trees. The larvae burrow under the bark and are the primary food

Everyone loves hummingbirds: they are little jewels of reflective, glittering light, darting through the dappled forest in impossible directions and, if you’re really lucky, alighting on your backyard hummingbird feeder. I spent months doing research in The Bahamas on a couple of different species of birds, but while there, I got to watch all the

Tap tap tap…tap tap tap. I turn my head at the distinctive sound of a woodpecker on a tree, hoping to glimpse it. I see a black-and-white body, with its head moving rhythmically as it searches for food, peck peck, peck peck. But is it a downy or a hairy woodpecker? Despite over 15 years

Look up…way, way up. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…either an osprey or a bald eagle. Actually, it could be a turkey vulture or a golden eagle too, but we’ll get to that. Large birds soaring high in the sky evoke feelings of freedom and power. After all, we’d all love to have an