October 1, 2026
Yale diagnosed me with two chronic conditions. One took years to acquire a name. The other came from a historian who told me I spoke “a grammar of birds.” Nearly thirty years later, I am beginning to understand what she meant.
October 1, 2026
A family trip to Puerto Rico begins with a possibly misidentified tody on a field-guide cover and somehow accumulates a rainforest bird quest, three late birdies, a Yale connection, and a mysterious golfer headed back toward El Yunque.
September 28, 2026
A spring round of golf, a narrow bridge, an aggressively self-possessed Canada Goose, three suddenly strategic golfers, and one power wheelchair combine to produce an enduring piece of golf-course ornithology that may not, strictly speaking, be true.
September 24, 2026
A pressing ornithological question: Did Say’s Phoebe (Sayornis saya) have any influence whatsoever on Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson’s “Say Say Say”? There is only one surviving songwriter who can settle the matter—and, regrettably, the research window is closing.
September 24, 2026
In the early American republic, swallows seemed to vanish each winter—and some observers believed they disappeared underwater. A bird mystery about observation, explanation, and what happens when people see something real but get the story wrong.
September 17, 2026
A Black Phoebe at the Huntington Library and Gardens becomes an experiment in taxonomy, attention, and particularity—and a reminder that eventually every category gives way to one bird, on one branch.