Steve Smith

The naming of birds has always been interesting to me. Some birds are named after people, such as the Cooper’s Hawk (named after 19th-century naturalist William Cooper), or Bonaparte’s Gull (named after Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte, who happened to be the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte!). Alexander Wilson, considered by many to be the Father of […]

Any time I am out on a bird-watching hike, or even when I am just sitting in my backyard on a sunny afternoon, I am entranced when I spot a hummingbird. These tiny creatures hardly seem real, zipping about in fast flight or hovering at a flower or feeder. When watching one, I feel like

Early in my bird-watching hobby, I was hiking in the woods of Colorado when I came across a tree with a dozen or so small holes drilled into it. The holes were very uniform and orderly, laid out in an almost perfect line. A while later, I came across another tree with a similar pattern

As a birdwatcher living in Colorado, I have always had to be satisfied with seeing the few species of hummingbird that can be found here–primarily the Black-chinned Hummingbird and the Broad-tailed Hummingbird. Occasionally I might be able to spot a Rufous Hummingbird as they are migrating through our fair state, headed either to the Pacific

Long before my bird-watching interest had taken hold, there was one bird that I could readily recognize, and each sighting of this bird brought me feelings of scorn and irritation. That bird was the Northern Flicker. To me, this bird was a pest, only too happy to drill holes in the side of our house

Since my first days of bird-watching, I have had a fondness for the Downy Woodpecker. Perhaps it is because it was the tenth bird type that I added to my life list when I was just starting to bird-watch. Maybe it is because the Downy Woodpecker is my wife’s favorite bird. Possibly it’s because when