Please enjoy this female Golden-crowned Kinglet eating a hover fly(?). I saw her in Cape May, New Jersey, the other day. Kinglets are usually pretty frenetic. This one was so focused on holding onto her meal that she slowed down enough for a photo. Look at her cute orange feet! 🪶

Image: Kate Wong

THE WARBLERS ARE COMING!!! Found these guys this morning in Connecticut in a big mixed flock of migrants. Black-throated Green Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Palm Warbler and a very dull Pine Warbler. Hooray for spring migration! 🪶

For Earth Day, trying to channel, if only for a moment, the utter bliss of this Gray Squirrel ensconced in the perfect tree nook and savoring a delicious nut

Out in Cape Cod Bay on the Miss Emily fishing boat this morning with a team of scientists studying the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. First whales spotted at 7:25! 🧪🐋

Kanzi the bonobo, who learned language and made stone tools, has died. Here's what we learned about ape and human cognition from this remarkable individual. (Don't miss the story about how Kanzi described the scary beaver he discovered in his habitat 🦫🥲) 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/kanz...

And the quiz bird is…a Bufflehead! Thanks for playing, everyone—I loved seeing your smart guesses.

And the quiz bird is…a Bufflehead!

Thanks for playing, folks! 🪶

QUIZ BIRD: I love being quizzed on bird identification when I’m out birdwatching with more experienced birders—helps me learn! I sent this photo to a friend who indulges this whim, thinking I might stump him. Nope. Care to guess? (North Shore of Massachusetts, February 21, 2025) 🪶

Eventually he flew off into the woods across the road. We couldn’t relocate him visually, but could hear his signature double-tap call faintly in the distance. Anyway, as you can tell, I love him. Happy Valentine’s Day.

We watched him for a long time as he foraged, hammering at the tree with his powerful bill in search of grubs and beetles.

But then we saw a trail into a part of the forest with the mature trees that these woodpeckers like and decided to walk it. We weren’t more than 20 meters or so in when I spied him, huge and magnificent, working his way up one of the trees, his scarlet head glowing against the dark bark.

We searched for hours along the roadside and in dense forest and I was starting to lose hope of finding one. The breeding season was over, so the woodpeckers were less territorial (and so less conspicuous).

My Valentine. Magellanic Woodpecker (male) in Tierra del Fuego national park. This was one of the birds I most wanted to see on my recent trip to Antarctica and Argentina. 🪶

Best bird from our Christmas Bird Count yesterday in southwestern Connecticut: Pine Warbler (2!). If you haven't heard of it before, the CBC is a long-running wildlife census carried out by volunteers (www.audubon.org/community-sc...). Anyone else do a count over the weekend or have plans to do one?

I have finally, just in time for Thanksgiving salad duty, learned how to seed a pomegranate and wow that was satisfying! (Cut pomegranate in half along the equator, hold one half cut side down over a big bowl, whack the skin with the back of a wooden spoon, rejoice as the arils come tumbling out.)

What a delight to listen to Donald Johanson talk with @carlzimmer.bsky.social last night about the 50th anniversary of his discovery of the iconic Lucy fossil. Learn how Lucy revolutionized the study of human origins in the November @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/foss... 🧪