Welcome to Birdie Girl….some skillful advice for the creative fledgling.
Famous Bird Paintings From China
Over the course of Chinese painting, the three main subjects have been landscapes, birds-and-flowers, and figures. Flower painting, previously associated chiefly with Buddhist art, came into its own as a separate branch of painting in the Five Dynasties (907-960)....
‘Migrating with the Sandhill Cranes’: Follow the journey
MNN Exclusive Film / For many of us, spring is an event that arrives quietly. The emergence of bulbs, the subtle shift towards longer days, the welcome return of warm morning breezes. For others, however, spring is announced in a thunderous chorus of hundreds of...
Why the Rufous Hummingbird is the Toughest Bird on the Block
Written by Kaitlin Stainbrook / Colorful rufous hummingbirds, like this male, have amazing memories. They often seek out and stop at the same feeders and flowers during their annual migration routes. If you reside in a northwestern state, like Washington or Oregon,...
The Cultural History Of The Plastic Pink Flamingo
Author: Annie Dell'Aria / In 1957, a 21-year-old art school graduate named Don Featherstone created his second major design for the Massachusetts-based lawn and garden decoration manufacturer Union Products: a three-dimensional plastic pink flamingo propped up by two...
In Colombia, Shade-Grown Coffee Sustains Songbirds and People Alike
By Gustave Axelson / All About Birds / Early one morning last January, I drank Colombian coffee the Colombian way—tinto, or straight dark. I sipped my tinto while sitting on a Spanish colonial veranda at Finca Los Arrayanes, a fourth-generation coffee farm and hotel...
Amid Europe’s Heat Wave, Rare Beautiful Flamingos Lay First Eggs in 15 Years
Written By Yonette Joseph / August 2018 / LONDON — In a feat attributed to the recent heat wave that swept across Europe, rare Andean flamingos at a wetlands reserve in Britain have laid eggs for the first time in 15 years. The exotic birds are “fickle breeders” and...
21 Birds That Are More Beautiful Than Any Human: Instagram models of the bird world
Written by Michelle Regna / BuzzFeed Contributor / 1. If you don’t follow bird accounts on Instagram, you’re seriously missing out! Instagram: @praveensiddannavar The Lilac-breasted Roller is the national bird of both Kenya and Botswana. 2. With roughly 20,000*...
Keeping Feathers Off Hats–And On Birds
By Angela Serratore / smithsonian.com 2018/ It’s easy to imagine the glamorous early 20th-century woman who might wear the tiara in front of me. Delicate and adorned with wispy white feathers that wouldn’t come cheap, this aigrette (the French word for egret) would...
North Country ‘Birdstones’: Mysterious Ancient Relics
Written by Lawrence P. Gooley / Early Northern New York history goes far beyond the bounds of stories of pioneer families and colorful guides. As archaeologists like to say, the Western Hemisphere was invaded, not discovered. Many different societies, civilizations,...
These Birds Make Their Own Citrus-Scented Cologne
By Benji Jones / The sexiest male crested auklets have large head feathers and a strong tangerine smell, a new study finds. On Alaska's rugged Shumagin Islands, no fruit tree dares take root, yet the smell of fresh lemons and tangerines hangs heavy in the air. A...
The Great Feather Heist
By Franz Lidz / April 2018 /The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century / Smithsonian/ The curious case of a young American’s brazen raid on a British museum’s priceless collection. Of all the eccentrics cataloged by “Monty...
Audubon’s Species: Bird Art, in All Its Glory
Written by CORNELIA DEAN Watercolor by Sarah Stone / from Beautiful Birds In 1812, John James Audubon filled a wooden box with about 200 of his paintings of American birds and left it with a relative for safekeeping while he went off on one of his many trips. When...