Backyard Bird Watching

How do birds survive the winter? Chickadees, redpolls, kinglets and grouse use 7 tricks, from fat and fluffed feathers to cold feet and snow roosts. Chart.

What does it mean when you see a cardinal? The folklore, from a Cherokee story to the modern ‘visitor’ saying, and the reasons cardinals are everywhere.

Barn owls are nesting in a Manhattan water tower, a first for the borough. Why it is rare, what a barn owl sounds like, and how it compares to yard owls.

Birds hit windows because they see reflected trees and sky or a clear path through the glass. Here’s why it happens, which windows are riskiest, what actually works, and what to do for a stunned bird.

A little gray bird with yellow on it is often a yellow-rumped warbler. Our chart shows where the yellow sits on 9 look-alikes, from kinglets to siskins.

A wet owl looks skinny because a dry owl is mostly fluff. Why soaked owl feathers go flat, how little US owls really weigh, and what to do if you find one.

Learn the common winter sparrows at your feeder: tree, white-throated, white-crowned, song, fox and chipping sparrows, and how to tell them apart fast.