Author: Neil A. Case

Spring is here. It began by the calendar on the 20th of March, one of two days of the year when the position of sun and earth make the day and night of equal length all over the world. From that day until mid-summer each day will be a little longer, each ... Read more

A red fox went across our property earlier this month, before the warm weather came. There was snow on the ground, snow and ice covered our marsh. The fox came out of the woods across the road to the west, crossed a field of grass, the road in front ... Read more

I’ve been out-foxed by squirrels. I’ve tried to keep those bushy tailed bird feeder marauders off the bird feeder outside my study window and the feeder outside the dining room window. Squirrels have found a way to circumvent my efforts. ... Read more

The cardinal is not a southern bird. But I think of it as one, as a bird with a similar distribution as the mockingbird. It was south to me when I was a boy. I lived in northern Iowa and cardinals were described as birds of the southern part of the state. ... Read more

“There’s a swan in the run, Dad,” my daughter told me one morning as we were getting the horses in the barn. Our run is a lane for the horses, fenced, approximately twenty feet wide and leads from the end of our barn to a pasture, a second pasture. ... Read more

After I retired my wife, our older daughter and I purchased a home in the country, 42 acres with a house and a barn, a large yard, two fenced pastured, a hay field and a pond. We also got a variety of trees. In the yard around the house were sugar and ... Read more

The sky is clear and blue, this morning, an example of October’s bright blue weather. Today is a few minutes shorter than yesterday and tomorrow be a few minutes shorter than today. Tree leaves are changing from green to yellow and orange and ... Read more

One hundred years ago, in 1916, representatives of the United States and Great Britain signed the Migratory Bird Treaty. ... Read more

I heard a robin chirping when I stepped outside one morning earlier this month. It was a young robin, a fledgling I thought, perhaps just out of the nest. ... Read more

May is the month to look for warblers in Indiana and in the other mid-latitude states of the U.S. May is the month when the warblers that nest in those states return after spending the winter farther south, many in South America, and May is the month ... Read more

Recently I wrote an article which I titled, Birds and Climate Change. In that article I listed summer birds I’ve seen this winter. By summer birds I mean birds that normally migrate, birds that leave northern Indiana and go south for the winter. ... Read more

My sister found it in a used bookstore in Augusta, Georgia, bought it and gave it to me. It’s obviously very old. Its cover is dull and splotchy, the title, Field Book of Wild Birds, is faded and hard to read. It’s the size, the height and width, of ... Read more

October has come, October with its bright blue weather. ... Read more

The wild turkey, read in a recent magazine article, is a winner. A winner among birds was described in the article as a bird that has increased in number, or is increasing or both. The wild turkey has certainly done that. Once it was found in limited ... Read more

Sparrows have a bad name. Many people don’t like them. Ask why and people who dislike them say they’re just little brown and gray birds. They’re colorless. They’re noisy too, but they don’t sing. They just chirp. They’re messy. They make nests ... Read more