Due to the relatively late start of the last few winters in Western New York, we have been periodically blessed by decent numbers of northern harriers, birds which were once called “marsh hawks”. Typically, these beautiful hawks aren’t here in any volume in the winter months because the snow inhibits their ability to hunt the open fields for mice and voles, so they head south where it’s not an issue. But, Novembers and Decembers, for the most part, have been snow-free in recent years, so our friends from the north stick around and have a productive time flying over local wheat and alfalfa fields. Harriers are fairly large birds of prey, coming in at 18 to 24 inches in length. To put that into perspective, the common red-tailed hawk is 19 to 25 inches in length. They look smaller, though, because they aren’t as bulky as red-tails and are more streamlined. Male harriers have a grey back and lightly-streaked underbelly while females are brown. Both sexes have a white rump patch, w...

  One evening last week I was serenaded by a screech owl. It reminded me of how much I appreciate their call, something that could easily give goose bumps to the uninitiated. Most people assume that all owls make a “hoot” call. While local owls such as the barred owl and great horned owl do that, the screech owl does not.   The screech owl, despite its name, does not screech. Instead, it has a descending, mournful call that some folks describe as “whinny.” It sounds just like one would think a ghost might, or even perhaps a banshee, the mythical she-creature that foretells the death of a family member. Their calls can scare young children and will do the same to many a grown adult. Sometimes, the quivering call ends with a sharp trill. Other times, you might hear that trill all by itself. The owls use that to define their territory. Not only does their sound defy your expectations for an owl, so does their appearance. When one thinks of an owl, they think of large birds like...

  This time of the year you might take notice of shrubs or small trees bearing dark-purple or black berries. Don’t eat them. The fruits of common buckthorn are not kind to man or mammals as they possess a chemical called emodin which increases water content in the colon and leads to the runs. Birds, on the other hand, love them. The berries (more appropriately known as drupes) ripen in late-summer and will last through a good part of the winter, feeding some species of birds that have an affinity for berries and stick around Western New York while most of their peers have flown south (such as robins and bluebirds). Birds being birds, they will fly off and leave droppings miles from the buckthorn shrub, dispersing the seeds, of which there are two to four in each drupe. It’s no different than what they do with mulberries or blackberries. While the outcome of that -- an increased range and number for these shrubs -- might seem to be good news for the birds, it’s really bad news for...