In the old records of Britain and Ireland the Blackbird stands for song in the woods (early Irish poems), a saint's gentleness (St Kevin), temptation (St Benedict), great age (the Welsh Blackbird of ...

A male Blackbird sings slow, mellow, whistled phrases, each usually ending in a short, scratchy twitter, most regularly from March to June and richest at dawn. Its calls include a loud chink, a low ...

What it means when you see a cardinal, according to the beliefs people hold, and where those beliefs come from: the name borrowed from the Catholic Church, the Cherokee legend of the redbird as the ...

Magpies build a big domed nest of sticks high in a tree, starting as early as December. In Britain the first eggs are laid around 22 April: usually 5 or 6 pale blue-green eggs, incubated by the female ...

American Robins nest from April into July, raise two broods a year and lay three or four sky-blue eggs in a mud-lined cup. Here is when and where they nest, why the eggs are blue, how long incubation ...

In early spring, cardinals feed on the ground for seeds in fields, meadows and leaf litter. Once the leaves open, they move up into trees and shrubs for buds and caterpillars. In fall they take fruit ...

Mourning Doves nest from late winter to fall in trees, shrubs, gutters, flower pots and on the ground, on a flimsy platform the female builds from twigs the male hands her. The clutch is always two ...

Cardinals stay put for the winter, so the cardinal at your feeder in January may well be a bird that nests nearby in spring. Here is where they spend the winter and how they get through the cold. No.

Woodpigeons nest late and for a long season: in Britain the first eggs are laid on average at the end of April, and nesting carries on into September. The nest is a thin platform of twigs in a tree; ...

What bird is singing? Let your phone listen or upload a recording, and Birdfact names the birds it hears, with their songs to ...

What does a Blue Jay symbolize? The old records make the jaybird the devil's Friday errand-runner, with a few luck and rain omens; Native American stories make it a watcher and boaster; Thoreau and ...

What do Northern Shovelers look like? One key feature used to identify a northern shoveler – male and female – is its wide, flat, spatula-like bill (dark gray in males and orange in females). However, ...