Category Archives: Bird Behavior

The Gull Guide (Book Review)

You may have noticed more references to gulls in our recent posts (see, for instance, “Birding Race Point” and “In Search of the Marbled Murrelet”). Or maybe not. Either way, Braden’s and my interest in gulls has been on the rise in recent years, and for good reason. Gulls are fascinating, beautiful, adaptable creatures worthy of attention. “So why didn’t you pay more attention to them before?” Roger, Scott, and some of our other loyal (and snarky) readers may ask. The reason is simple: gulls are hard. Many of the adults look similar, but if that isn’t perplexing enough, most gull species go through multiple molts which make them look radically different seasonally and from year to year—and frustratingly similar to other gulls in their various molts. The bottom line: to even approach competence identifying gulls, you have to devote a LOT of time to it, and finally, after about a decade of birding, Braden and I have felt ready to dip our toes into this task. Imagine our delight, then, to discover the release of a brand new book from Amar Ayyash, The Gull Guide: North America (Princeton University Press, 2024).

As soon as I heard about The Gull Guide, Amy and I bought a copy for Braden for Christmas. I quickly realized, however, that I wanted a copy of my own, so I contacted Princeton University Press and asked if they would like me to review the book. A week later, my own fresh copy arrived. Flipping through it, I recognized that I may have taken on more than I bargained for. The Gull Guide, I saw, is no mere specialized guide to a group of birds. It is a magnum opus—or in this case, a magnum gullpus—by one of the world’s foremost authorities on a subject. But let’s get to it . . .

First Impressions: attractive design; gorgeous photographic illustrations; logically and intuitively organized; comfortable to hold in your hands (really!).

My first casual flip through The Gull Guide conjured up a deep feeling that I was holding the Rosetta Stone to an important part of the birding universe. Upon the author’s suggestion, I started by reading the introduction and, I gotta say, this alone made the book worth buying. To wit, even though I knew that gulls seem to thrive in human-created places such as garbage dumps and parking lots, I had no idea just how successful and adaptable they are. To quote the author, “No gull species is known to have gone extinct for as long as modern taxonomy has kept records (Dee 2018). In many ways, they are similar to Homo sapiens: omnivores exploiting and consuming whatever they cross paths with.”

The first gull I looked up in *The Gull Guide* is one of Braden’s and my favorite species, Heermann’s Gulls. I learned that these handsome rascals are known for landing on the backs of Brown Pelicans—and stealing fish right out of their pouches! **They nest primarily on a single island in the Gulf of California.**

About fifty species of gulls inhabit the planet (fewer than I would have guessed), and The Gull Guide provides coverage of thirty-two that have a presence in North America. The author divides these into three categories:

Small Tern-like and Hooded Gulls

Gulls in the genus Larus

The Herring Gull complex (which is also made up of Larus species, but stands out for the difficulty in identifying and classifying them)

This last fall, I spent a lot of time looking at Glaucous-winged Gulls, part of the “Herring Gull complex”—a large group of beefy white-headed gulls. Adult Glaucous-wingeds can usually be ID’ed by the gray-and-white wing tips. However, this entire group of gulls is especially known to hybridize with each other, often making them notoriously difficult to identify.

If I had any hope that The Gull Guide would help me learn to easily identify all of these different species, the author quickly laid that fantasy to rest. “It is important to accept that identifying every gull 100 percent of the time is an impractical undertaking,” he states early in the book. “The sooner we come to terms with this, the sooner we’re able to enjoy gulls for what they are. Struggling with an identification should be looked at as an opportunity to grow and cultivate our craft.”

Yeah, sure. Easy for him to say! For my part, I was eager to start building my skills. I therefore proceeded to read the excellent chapters on gull body parts, molts, and overall identification features. Then, I swooped into chapters on individual species.

Loyal FSB readers will recall that we got our lifer Ivory Gull on Flathead Lake on Braden’s birthday in 2020. Hundreds of birders from Montana and several other states made the pilgrimage to see this rare Montana vagrant.

As you would expect, for each species the author provides a basic overview followed by detailed information on the bird’s range, identification, molts, and hybrids—an especially important discussion since gulls are famous for hybridizing with each other in ways that are often difficult, if not impossible, to figure out. Part of what makes the book so impressive, though, is the inclusion of up to dozens of color plates for each species. These show each bird in different molts as well as geographic variation within the species, and abundant examples of hybridization as well.

Although The Gull Guide is very useful for beginning birders, it is clearly written and designed to accommodate expert birders, including those who wish to make the study of gulls one of their primary birding pursuits. As someone in between those two extremes, I have been using the book to tease out some of the gull challenges I have myself encountered—distinguishing between hybrid Glaucous-winged Gulls and Herring Gulls, for instance, or Franklin’s versus Laughing Gulls.

While it’s a treat to catch Bonaparte’s Gulls as they move through Montana, Braden and I had a great chance to observe them on the East Coast this past fall. The distinct black “dot” behind the eye is a good way to ID these widespread gulls in non-breeding plumage. In breeding, it has a totally black head. It is the only gull to nest largely in trees.

I especially pored through the gulls we have here in Montana, beginning with our most common species, the Ring-billed Gull. Here, I noticed something that could use correction, or at least more explanation. Ring-billed Gulls can be readily found in many parts of Montana throughout the year, and yet the range map for the species shows them as “year-round” only in certain Great Lakes locations. Braden confirms they are also on the eastern seaboard throughout the year, and eBird bar charts also show them as present throughout the year in many other states. I’m sure the author knows this, so in the next edition, to avoid confusion, I’d like to see his reasoning or methodology for how the range map is created.

That aside, I am sure that The Gull Guide will become a dog-eared companion for both Braden and me as our expertise and interest in this fascinating group of birds continues to grow. This isn’t the first reference book a beginning birder will want to buy, but I highly recommend it for anyone expanding birdwatching beyond their backyard feeders, or for those intrigued by gulls and their fascinating biology.

Overall Rating (on a scale of cool birds): Ross’s Gull (highest)

You can order The Gull Guide from your local independent bookstore, Buteo Books, or directly from Princeton University Press. Please tell them we sent you!

In Search of the Marbled Murrelet (Birding Victoria, Part II)

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After three nights in Victoria (see last week’s post “Birding Victoria, BC”), Amy and I headed up the Vancouver Island coast toward a spot where we had spent our first nights together as married folk—a lovely establishment called the Point No Point Resort. On the way up, I bamboozled Amy into stopping at one of the most well-known birding hotspots in the area: Whiffin Spit Park. As its rather humorous name implies, the park is a narrow spit of land stretching about a kilometer across the mouth of the bay where the town of Sooke is located, and it has recorded an impressive list of birds.

**Whiffin Spit is perhaps the most well-known place to observe ocean and shore birds between Victoria and Port Renfrew. Alas, the many free-roaming pet dogs makes it less than ideal for shorbs.**

As Amy walked ahead, I schlepped my scope, zooming in on anything promising. Over the next hour, I found Red-breasted Mergansers, more Harlequin Ducks (Yay!), Surf Scoters, Common Loons, and most exciting, a pair of Pacific Loons. Along the path, I also got excellent looks at Black Oystercatchers and Black Turnstones. Alas, the numerous unleashed dogs did not create a bird-friendly environment, and chased off the birds several times. (Our dog, Lola, by the way, informed me that she would never engage in such unruly behavior—cough, cough.)

The longer we stayed on Vancouver Island, the more Pacific Loons I got to see. I have learned to identify these handsome birds by their silvery heads and neck postures, which remind me of cobras ready to strike. Up close, the dark “chin strap” is also diagnostic.

Despite these good birds, I had by now firmly set my mind on seeing alcids, a group of sea birds affectionately dubbed the penguins of the northern hemisphere. These birds include murres, guillemots, Razorbills, Dovekies, and puffins, but the ones I most wanted to see were murrelets. Two kinds frequented the area: Ancient and Marbled. My new birder friend John (see this recent post) had told me that Ancient Murrelets tended to fly around in groups while Marbled Murrelets were most often observed as loners floating on the surface. Either species would be a lifer for me, and I would have been ecstatic to find one. Alas, the task was proving much more difficult than I had hoped. I totally struck out in Victoria, and now I “whiffed” at Whiffin Spit, too.

Perhaps my best photo ever of an adult Common Merganser, hanging out on the bay side of Whiffin Spit with an equally stunning female.

The Point No Point Resort helped ease my disappointment. The cabins and rooms are all cleverly designed for privacy and each looks out over the spectacular Strait of Juan de Fuca (part of the Salish Sea). The sun was setting by the time we checked in—just time for me to set up my spotting scope and find a raft of about forty Surf Scoters floating below us. They would become regular companions of our stay. I also noted a few cormorants and other birds, but alas, no alcids.

**Our room at the Point No Point not only offered a mesmerizing view of the Olympic Peninsula across the water, but a chance to scope for more seabirds.**

Undaunted, I rose the next morning to hit two nearby spots that had been recommended as great seabird locations: Otter Point and Muir Creek. The birding gods seemed stubbornly pitted against me. I saw a few more loons, including my first Red-throated Loon, along with my first Pacific Wren and a dozen or so species I’d been seeing for the past few days, but nothing that really got my heart racing.

**At Muir Creek, I was pleased to get an actual look at a Pacific Wren. Amy and I heard them several other times, but the birds like their privacy!**

This pattern repeated itself for the next couple of days as Amy and I explored several more places between Sooke and Port Renfrew. Honestly, the birds that most excited me were Short-billed Gulls (formerly Mew Gulls)—birds that I had never seen in such numbers, and had only recently become skilled at identifying myself.

Gulls are notoriously difficult to identify—something I’ll tackle in an upcoming post—but the Short-billed Gull stands out for its smaller size, yellow legs, and overall “cuteness,” as Braden puts it. In breeding, its bill lacks any kind of marking, though as you can see in this photo, adults sport a faint ring at other times of the year.

Before we knew it, we arrived back at the Point No Point for our last luxurious evening of watching the sea and enjoying the view of the Olympic Peninsula across the water. As we prepared to soak in our private hot tub, though, I picked up my cool new binoculars (see our last post) for one final look at the ocean below us. In the rapidly fading light, I spotted our loyal raft of Surf Scoters, along with gulls and cormorants. Then, I noted a tiny speck in the breaking waves close to shore, and quickly focused in on it. I guessed it was a piece of kelp or driftwood, but then, through the lenses, the unlikely shape of a bird emerged!

My heart accelerating, I frantically set up the scope which lay at my feet and zoomed in on the shape. “No friggin’ way!” I exclaimed. Honestly, I didn’t know exactly what I was looking it, but I felt sure I hadn’t seen it before. I was also sure I needed some photos, no matter how crummy, so I switched out my scope for my camera on the tripod, and captured a few quick images through our windows before, to my disappointment, the bird drifted out of view behind some trees.

By this time, after a quick consult with my Sibley app, I felt positive that the tiny bird had indeed been a murrelet, but which kind? Studying my horrible photos and comparing them to Sibley, I noted the white patches on the shoulders and near the tail. That ruled out Ancient Murrelet. I also checked the illustrations for all the other alcids that might be in the area. Only one matched my photos: Marbled Murrelet! Even better, ten minutes later the bird reappeared below our window. By now, the light had grown truly dim, but I took my tripod and camera out onto the deck and managed some slightly better shots.

My fellow birders can imagine how that one bird pretty much made the entire trip for me. Everything else was just lovely, too, but a Marbled Murrelet? That put the icing on the cake, or for me, the chocolate chips in the cookie. It also sent my imagination racing, seeing that tiny bird deftly negotiate the waves crashing into shore. It was just so comfortable in an environment that would have snuffed me out in a matter of minutes.

Marbled Murrelets defy the imagination for another reason. Unlike other alcids, they nest not in burrows or on cliffs, but in trees! In fact, the nesting location of this bird remained a great ornithological mystery for more than a century as biologists looked everywhere (but not in the tops of trees, evidently) for a Marbled Murrelet nest. “Finally,” recounts Cornell Lab’s Birds of the World, “in 1961 and 1974, the first verified and published nests were reported in Asia and North America, respectively.”

Amazing.

Unfortunately, the birds prefer old-growth coastal forest, forests that have experienced extreme logging pressures over the past century. The birds have also been impacted by fishing gear, forest fires, and other hazards. As a result, the bird is listed as endangered or threatened throughout its North American range. That made it all the more remarkable that one had deigned to show up right below our picture window—almost as if following some kind of cosmic movie script. I felt very fortunate.

**Yay! More Harlequin Ducks! During our last session at Clover Point, these stunning birds really put on a show, chasing each other around and posing for one visiting birder.**

The next day, Amy and I returned to Victoria and another round of birding at Clover Point—my best session there yet. Pacific Loons, Buffleheads, Harlequin Ducks, and Surf Scoters seemed to be everywhere, and I was thrilled to find a pair of immaculately-feathered Long-tailed Ducks far out on the water. Though we would not head home until the following day, it was a great way to wrap up a trip that proved delightfully unexpected in so many ways. Huge gratitude goes to my wife and partner, Amy, for giving me such a wonderful surprise. And now, it was time for us to go celebrate with stiff umbrella drinks and a plate full of chicken enchiladas.

Bird of the Day honors for our last day in Victoria went to these Long-tailed Ducks. Adult male LTDUs (left) are especially striking in full plumage, and I at first assumed that the one on the right was a female. The rich brown back and bold, well-defined white face patch, however, suggests a first-year male.

Plenty of Partridges: Braden & I Kick Off Another Year of Birding!

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Braden and I kicked off our 2025 at one of our favorite western Montana birding spots: Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge. While mainly envisioned as a duck factory, the surrounding farms and grasslands provide plenty of grassland bird habitat and raptor hunting grounds, so in winter that’s what we mainly search for. We began the day by looking for Short-eared Owls at a “vole-opolis” our neighbor Tim, a game bird hunter, told us about last year (see our post “Lost in Owls”). Sure enough, we got distant looks at three of these mesmerizing, long-winged raptors as they cruised low over a tapestry of grass and cattails. They were joined by a trio of Northern Harriers, birds that are so similar to Short-eared Owls in appearance and habits that they offer an almost perfect lesson in convergent evolution—the incidence of two unrelated species being shaped in similar ways by natural selection.

Braden celebrating seeing Short-eared Owls in 2025!

After our time with the owls and harriers, we set out on a leisurely cruise northward on dirt roads with the spectacular snow-capped Mission Mountains majestically gazing down on us. The raptors continued to please, with great close-up looks at our first Golden Eagle of the year, three or four Rough-legged Hawks, a couple of American Kestrels, two Merlins, plenty of Red-tailed Hawks, and no fewer than a dozen Bald Eagles.

**This Northern Harrier is seriously eye-balling a group of Gray Partridges below, but decided not to go for it.**

I’ve been worried about a dearth of small song birds all year, and that continued today. Usually, we at least see some waxwings or American Tree Sparrows at Ninepipe, but not today. I’m hoping the warmer winter somehow explains it, but I am especially concerned about the pervasive use of neonicotinoid pesticides and their deadly effects on birds. A future blog post, perhaps.

While songbirds were few and far between, we encountered a veritable population explosion of a bird we usually see only once or thrice a year: Gray Partridges! In the space of an hour or two, we saw these birds at least half a dozen times in groups ranging from four to more than a dozen. “I think I’ve seen more Gray Partridges today than in the rest of my life,” I told Braden, and it might have been true, as we totaled almost seventy of these birds. As with the rest of the day, I managed only lousy photos, but we delighted in watching these introduced, but charming, orange-faced critters.

Another fuzzy shot, but entertaining just the same—a Gray Partridge zooming toward us. These birds are unusually difficult to photograph, and I doubt I’ve ever gotten a good shot of them.

We finished the day scouring the southern shore of Flathead Lake near Polson. We had to look pretty hard, but finally found good numbers of waterfowl and gulls at Ducharme fishing access. Here we were rewarded by more than five hundred Common Mergansers, and much smaller numbers of wigeons, Mallards, Buffleheads, Green-winged Teal, Northern Pintails—and a lone Redhead. Braden also picked out several Tundra Swans from the more numerous Trumpeters.

Tundra Swans on Flathead Lake. These birds can be hard to distinguish from Trumpeter Swans, but they have small yellow patches forward of their eyes, and often have overall whiter heads and necks than Trumpeters.

Perhaps my favorite part of this last big session was focusing in on a group of seventy or eighty gulls out on a frozen edge of the lake. Part of my enthusiasm was having just received a review copy of Amar Ayyash’s epic new book, The Gull Guide: North America. I plan to write a full review of this remarkable book soon, but my first perusals have gotten me super excited to learn more about gulls. Even better, as Braden and I studied the group in front of us through our scope, we picked out both Ring-billed and Herring Gulls. Then, I paused on a gull that looked unlike any others. It had pink legs, medium gray wings, dark eyes, light head streaking, and a single red spot on the bill. It also was noticeably smaller than the Herring Gull next to it. Braden suggested a Thayer’s Iceland Gull and I have to say that I agree with him. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get decent photos and gulls are notoriously hard to ID, so we didn’t record it. Still, I’m thinking Thayer’s is what we saw.

**Ring-billed and Herring Gulls on Flathead Lake. It’s easy to pick out the Herring Gulls by their large sizes. Maybe I’ll even find some other species after studying The Gull Guide in depth!**

And so it begins . . . a great new year of birding! I hope you’ve all been able to get out and enjoy the remarkable avian wildlife our planet is blessed with. In fact, if you haven’t already done so, I urge you to support one or more of the terrific conservation groups working to make sure birds are always with us. For more info, see our post “Saving Birds. It’s Time.” Thanks for reading and I hope to see some of you out there birding soon!

Birding Race Point: Cape Cod’s Pelagic Playground

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The week before Thanksgiving, my family had the opportunity to visit a place that featured prominently in my childhood—Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We headed to Boston so that I could accept a big award for my picture book, Border Crossings, but the trip provided many piggybacking opportunities. These included a chance to look at colleges for Braden’s sister, Tessa, and to meet up with Braden for Thanksgiving. After Amy, Tessa, and I spent a few days in Boston, in fact, Braden drove down from the University of Maine and whisked us off to the Cape.

I spent parts of many summers in Woods Hole on the Cape. My father did his post-doc at WHOI—the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. My step-father spent dozens of summers in Woods Hole doing research and teaching classes at the MBL—the Marine Biological Laboratories. I have many fond (and some not-so-fond) memories of those summers, but had not been back for (gasp) 45 years! I looked forward to revisiting old haunts and showing my family some of the places that had shaped my childhood. Naturally, Braden and I also considered the birding possibilities.

When Braden first mentioned going to Race Point near Provincetown, I hesitated. I recalled driving up there as a ten-year-old and didn’t relish spending an extra four hours of our vacation in a car. When Braden started telling me what we might find there, however, I quickly changed my mind.

Race Point, it turns out, is one of the nation’s premiere places for spotting seabirds from land. A map reveals an obvious reason: Cape Cod juts miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, and the tip—Race Point itself—is surrounded on three sides by the sea. This means that birders have an opportunity to see both regular beach-type birds and many species that only rarely show up near land. Braden and I especially hoped to see jaegers, “tube noses” such as shearwaters, and any interesting gulls or ducks that happened to be around.

After a delicious breakfast at Liz’s Café in Provincetown, Braden and I left Amy and Tessa to explore while we headed off to the parking lot near Race Point lighthouse. As soon as we approached the beach, we spotted Northern Gannets soaring above wild, wind-raked seas. I’d only ever gotten a brief look at a NOGA before, when Braden and I had visited Acadia National Park three years before, so right away the drive up to Provincetown redeemed itself!

However, the excitement was just beginning.

**One of perhaps 150 Northern Gannets we saw at Race Point. Like Blue-footed Boobies, these birds torpedo straight down into schools of fish.**

As wind and sand pelted us, groups of White-winged and Black Scoters, Common Eiders, and Long-tailed Ducks skimmed the waves just offshore. Some occasionally landed, but most seemed hell-bent for destinations only they knew about. All were birds I had scant experience with, so I soaked up every sighting.

**This was only my second time seeing Common Eiders, and I was uber impressed by the coloration of both females and males.**

“There’s a Red-throated Loon!” Braden said, pointing to a bird with an exceedingly pale, long neck reaching up from the surface. It wouldn’t be long before we saw several Common Loons, differentiated by blockier heads, chunkier bills, and more black on their faces.

**Only my second Red-throated Loon ever. Note the smooth, rounded head and white “winter” face.**

At the top of our To Find list were Great Shearwaters, a potential Lifer for both of us. These birds belong to the “tube noses,” the same group of birds that includes albatrosses, fulmars, and storm-petrels. These birds are truly seafarers, rarely approaching shore. Only a few weeks ago, I had caught a glimpse of Sooty Shearwaters while visiting California’s Point Reyes National Park with my friend Scott. Great Shearwaters had been sighted regularly at Race Point for the past couple of weeks, but alas, we arrived too late to see them today.

**Braden fruitlessly searching the seas for Great Shearwaters and jaegers.**

We still had plenty of thrilling birds to look at, however. As we trudged the mile and a half through the soft sand toward the very tip of the Cape, flocks of Dunlin and Sanderlings in their winter plumages worked the drifts of foam left on the beach by each encroaching wave. We even saw a group of six Horned Larks, birds we were used to seeing on the backroads of Montana—not here at the end of the world.

**It had been years since I’d gotten to hang with Dunlins, and it was a real treat.**

Not to be outdone, gulls also put on a show. This was the first time I’d ever gotten to see Great Black-backed Gulls in a natural setting. They are the world’s largest gulls, and I gotta say they looked like they belonged in this rugged, challenging environment.

“Look!” Braden suddenly shouted. “Iceland Gull!” Two of them, in fact. These gulls had until recently been split into Iceland and Thayer’s Gull, and Braden and I had seen the latter at the Helena landfill in Montana. This look was much more memorable as both a juvenile and adult landed near us. Both were gorgeous birds with subtle markings, and they quickly jumped into contention for Bird of the Day honors. Not long after seeing the Iceland Gulls, Braden also spotted a Black-legged Kittiwake. I was grateful he’d gained experience with all of these birds while on the East Coast, because I certainly would have missed a lot of them.

**I don’t even want to know what this Great Black-backed Gull is eating, as our two Iceland Gulls look on.**

I picked up two Lifers for the day. One was Razorbill, a kind of black-and-white alcid I had dreamed about seeing for years (see our post “All About Alcids”). During our hike to the lighthouse and back, we saw about eighty of these birds in groups, flying low or bobbing up and down in the jagged waves. My second Lifer was a pair of Purple Sandpipers that landed in front of us and shouldn’t have been anywhere near a wide sandy beach. Like its closely-related West Coast cousin the Rock Sandpiper, these are rocky shore birds.

**I was especially thrilled to see my Lifer Razorbills, but it’s a tossup whether these or the Iceland Gulls grabbed Bird of the Day honors.**

“They must be migrating,” I said, and Braden agreed, though we were well within their wintering latitudes.

As we trudged back toward the car, Braden spotted a fin jutting out of the water. At first we thought it might be the dorsal fin of a shark or orca, but after watching it for a few minutes, we concluded that we were looking at the tail flukes of a larger whale. I’d seen quite a few humpback whales before, and these didn’t look anything like it. “I think it’s a Right Whale,” I said. Later, we learned that Right Whales had been regularly spotted in the area. It was one more unforgettable discovery for a memorable day.

Race Point eBird Checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S203601766

Robin Smackdown: Old World versus New

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At any time of year, but during the holidays especially, new birders are likely to become confused by some of the birds they see on cards, calendars—even in animations. Don’t beat yourself up. The reason for your confusion is simple: many creative types (including those who aren’t birders) often pay scant attention to what a bird is or where it actually comes from. Artists especially, when they decide to make a bird painting or land a contract for bird art, cruise the internet for photos of birds. “Hey, I like that one!” they may say, not realizing that the bird has no relation to their intended audiences.

Just recently, in fact, Amy and I were wandering around a wonderful art walk night in Billings and stopped in at one place to admire the work of a new artist. Amy noticed some bird cards, and we bought a few. What was on them? A European species! I asked the artist if she knew she had painted a European bird, and she said, “No. I just liked how it looked.”

**Can you name this bird? It’s not a North American species—but you will find it on plenty of cards, calendars—even in some popular movies.**

In my experience, the most common occurrence of this kind of thing happens with Old World and New World robins. Look at the bird above. What do you see? If you answer “robin”, you are correct—but it’s not the robin we see here in North America. The bird above is a European Robin—in other words, the original robin. The robin we have here is the American Robin. What’s more, the two are only distantly related. European Robins belong to the family Muscicapidae, a group consisting primarily of Old World Flycatchers. American Robins belong to the family—don’t laugh—Turdidae, or thrushes. So how did these birds come to share the name “robin”?

How else? Colonial imperialism.

**According to a 2011 segment of BirdNote, early English birders once dubbed the Baltimore Oriole the Golden Robin, though it has little relation to either the European or American Robin.**

I won’t try to prove this, but it seems that the English were the original birdwatchers, and they carried their passion with them to the vast territories that they subjugated, usually without their owners’ permissions. In fact, the English pretty much disregarded the original occupants of a place along with any native knowledge of animals these occupants might possess. As a result, Brits gleefully conferred new names on most of the strange and interesting animals they encountered. Often these new names were actually old names that the English were already familiar with—including the name Robin, aka Robin Redbreast.

According to the delightful BirdNote episode titled, “How the Robin Got Its Name,” the English went a little buck wild with the name Robin. They called towhees Ground Robins. They dubbed the Baltimore Oriole the Golden Robin. If you compare the photo of the European Robin at the top with the photo below, it’s not hard to figure out how the American Robin got its name, either. But while chances are good that most American birders have come to appreciate American Robins, I’m guessing many of us haven’t encountered its etymological ancestor.

**We can thank early British twitchers for bestowing the name “robin” on perhaps our most colorful THRUSH, the American Robin.**

Both Braden and I have had the good fortune to see European Robins several times in the past few years, and I must tell you, they are delightful—if somewhat shy—birds. The first time was in Amsterdam’s Vondelpark, which we birded during a long layover on our way to Israel. Sure enough, in Israel we also saw “EUROs” several times. Most recently, Amy and I enjoyed seeing European Robins in Barcelona (see our post “Birding Barcelona, Part 1: The Urban Core.”).

**A European Robin scraping for invertebrates in Barcelona’s most central urban park, Parc Ciutadella.**

I always take special delight in seeing this bird, perhaps because of its name, but also because it is every bit as beautiful as our American Robin. As mentioned above, the European Robin belongs to the Old World Flycatcher family, and I have seen them perched—presumably waiting to snag an insect out of the air. Like many other birds in its family, however, the European Robin seems more of a ground forager. Most recently, in Barcelona’s Ciutadella Park, I watched them scraping through dead leaves for invertebrates. Only a few days later, we watched one boldly perched above a pond in the botanical gardens.

Even though they aren’t closely related, AMROs and EUROs share a lot in common. Both live exclusively in the northern hemisphere, and are one of the most common land birds on their respective continents. And while they are year-round residents in large parts of their ranges, they also have distinctly migratory populations. They also both love to gorge themselves on insects, worms, and other hapless, creatures without backbones—but neither turns down fruit and seeds when the right opportunities arise.

American Robin perched in our burr oak tree.

Our defiantly anti-imperial bent may lead some American birders to proclaim that our robin is the superior bird. After all, it’s bigger and has a bolder red breast, but making such a claim is downright silly. Both birds are worthy of admiration and provide a terrific opportunity to further our birding educations. Best of all, as we travel North America, Europe, the Middle East, or north Africa, it is likely that we will always have one of these lovely creatures to greet us!

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Sharing the Passion of Birds and Birding