Category: Birdwatching

_{This YouTube video was produced by the American Bird Conservancy.}

The plump, big-eyed, long-billed, and short-legged American Woodcock (Scolopax minor) is an odd study in contrasts. Like the related Wilson’s Snipe, it’s a shorebird far from shore, often heard but rarely seen, and has earned colorful folk names such as “timberdoodle” and “bogsucker” through its unlikely habits and habitats. This strange, shy species is well worth seeking out, if only to observe the males’ enchanting flight display.

Woodcocks are best sought in late winter and early spring, in the crepuscular (twilight) hours of early morning or evening. The best places

_{This YouTube video was produced by the American Bird Conservancy.}

The Nashville Warbler (Leiothlypis ruficapilla) is a lively songbird with elegant, understated plumage and a special fondness for sunny forests, brushy undergrowth, and juicy caterpillars. It is also one of several birds in the Western Hemisphere with a rather misleading name. This bird is only in the southeastern United States for a few weeks during migration on its way between the northern forests where it breeds and its wintering grounds in Mexico, Central America, and the California coast. The species was first discovered in Tennessee, and the “Nashville” name stuck,

_{This YouTube video was produced by the American Bird Conservancy.}

Although it resembles the more numerous and widely distributed Field Sparrow of the United States, the rare and Endangered Worthen’s Sparrow is restricted to the arid open lands of Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert, where it times its nesting to the yearly patterns of rainfall. Though it’s not considered a migratory species, the Worthen’s Sparrow tends to wander in search of water and other resources after the nesting season, joining mixed-species flocks of Vesper, Brewer’s, Clay-colored, and Black-throated Sparrows and Western Bluebirds.

As with many other threatened and endangered species, the Worthen’s