We made our first stop at the Goleta Pier. It was a private tour, the kind where the plan stays loose and the day has room to unfold on its own. Coastal California usually offers a good mix of species, with a few reliable stops that help set the pace early. The idea is to […]
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It was June of 2010, and I was running point counts along the Missouri River near Bismarck. I had a small camp set up above the riverbank, just enough to move between survey points without packing everything up each time. Mid-morning, a female Common Merganser wandered into camp with eleven chicks behind her. She didn’t […]
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Recently, I was doing a program when someone asked me, “What’s your least favorite bird?” The question caught me off guard. Not because it’s uncommon. Plenty of birds are considered pests around the world. What surprised me was that I didn’t have an answer. A younger version of myself might have said European Starling, or […]
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It was a cold afternoon on March 1 when I pulled into Coal Creek Open Space near my home for some birding and was met with flashes of blue across the grasslands. Mountain Bluebirds spread out in every direction. Not a few. A lot. For a moment, I was stunned into stillness. A Landscape Full […]
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It was a cold February day in Sax-Zim Bog when I saw my first Northern Hawk Owl. The wind whipped around me, the kind that makes the trees hiss and lean. The owl was perched at the very top of a thin evergreen, the whole branch bending and swaying under its weight. It felt like […]
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Have you noticed how the phrase “mates for life” frequently shows up in how we talk about animals? It’s relatable, memorable, and easy to envision. Two birds returning to the same place, season after season. The same pair on the same stretch of water. The same silhouettes on the same snag at dusk. There’s something […]
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We spent part of December in Maui, and as always, a few birds quietly worked their way into the daily routine. Morning walks, coffee stops, slow drives along the coast. There they were. I found myself watching Pacific Golden-Plovers, or Kōlea, more than I expected. One on a stretch of lawn near a beach access. […]
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2025 was a grounded year for Pteravia. It felt like the pieces that had been moving for a while finally began to line up. I spent meaningful time in the field, deepened my learning, and started to see momentum from long-term efforts take shape. Early 2025: Kicking Things Off in the Northwest I kicked things […]
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It’s funny how some early experiences shape the way you see a place, even if you don’t realize it at the time. Growing up in California, some of my first jobs in the field took me everywhere from the Channel Islands to the Sierra Nevada. But for me, Southern California stayed with me the most. […]
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The idea for our Outer Banks tour didn’t start with a planning session or a spreadsheet. It began on a windy spring afternoon at Dinosaur Ridge, Colorado. I was back visiting the hawkwatch site I used to coordinate when I met Sage, a fellow birder, who was helping out that day. As we talked, we […]
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