The next time you get a close look at the birds at your feeders, try to notice their legs, and specifically, their leg joints. Good luck. The leg joints of songbirds are usually hidden by the fluffy body feathers on their belly. All we usually see of songbirds are the naked “calf” above their feet.

Wondering what to do when you hear that sound of a bird hitting glass, and you look outside to see a stunned bird lying on the ground below one of your windows? Here's some advice from WBB editor Bill Thompson, III.

Dear Birdsquatch:

My grandson informed me recently that bird nests are nurseries and not houses. If that’s true, then where do birds sleep? I mean the birds that visit my bird feeders, not ducks or herons or roadrunners. And if your answer is that they perch in trees, then why don't they fall off when they sleep?

—Patty J., Columbia, Missouri

Across much of the United States, some birds always seem to rush nesting season; they can be heard singing even as February snow flies. The northern cardinal leads the pack of early singers, closely followed by the tufted titmouse and chickadees.

Have you ever watched a bird vist your feeder during the winter and wondered, "Won't birds freeze their little feet off on the metal perches? It's 20 degrees below zero! How do they do it?" Nature has a clever way of keeping birds' feet warm and functional.

Wondering what to expect as summer transitions to fall? Activity at your feeders will pick up as natural food sources wane and autumn progresses. And if you find that rewarding, try looking beyond your bird feeders and into the shrubs and foliage in your yard. Look at the sky above your yard, and listen for sounds you haven't heard before.

Have you ever noticed how much of what we consider "conventional wisdom" is actually wrong and ridiculous? Bird-feeding conventional wisdom is riddled with bad information. But you, my friend, are in luck! I have tried most everything in bird feeding at least once, and I have made nearly every mistake possible. Why? So you won't have to!

In 2020, full moons will occur September 2, October 1, October 31, and November 30. If the night sky is cloudless, aim your binoculars toward the moon, and watch. Most migratory land birds make their twice-yearly journey at night, including thrushes, warblers, flycatchers, sparrows, orioles, vireos, and cuckoos.

All birds—and only birds—have feathers, but how much do you know about feathers, really? WBB managing editor Dawn Hewitt shares surprising facts!

If you're anything like me, you probably spend a fair number of summertime evenings relaxing outside with a good book and your favorite beverage, casually noting the bird activity around you. If feeders or nest boxes are nearby, you're probably noticing chickadees, hummingbirds, bluebirds, swallows, and other expected birds, depending upon where you live. But what about the many other species that are more easily overlooked, either because they don't commonly visit feeders or use nest boxes, or because they tend to stay hidden in the treetops? Here are six surprisingly common birds that may be sharing your backyard, park, or other favorite summertime space.

When spring bird migration ends and nesting season begins, summer is upon you. For some backyard bird watchers this means that activity slows a bit at the feeders. Some backyard birders refer to a hot summer afternoon as boring. Perish the thought! There are dozens of other things to watch, observe, and enjoy when the birds are sneakily going about their breeding season activities. Here are just 10 for you to consider. Add some shade and a cold drink, and you're all set.

Many backyard bird watchers miss a big piece of migration because they don't look up. Not all the birds that sweep past each spring and fall make a pit stop at your bird feeder, or even in your neighborhood. Some, such as hawks, waterfowl, and gulls, keep right on truckin', headed for distant places or searching for habitat most backyard bird watchers can't provide. In migration, the sky over your house is a highway; on some days it can be as busy as the beltway at rush hour.

You don't need to be an avid birder to notice that birds make a wide variety of sounds. Some of these sounds are gentle and pleasant, like the beautiful phrasing of a newly arrived wood thrush in spring. Other sounds can be jarring and annoying, at least to a nonbirder, such as the loud mechanical imitations of a northern mockingbird on a summer night.

Did you know? Juncos begin leaving their homes in the boreal forests across northern North America in October and tend to return to the same areas each year, bird banding research has shown.

Across much of the United States, a cohort of birds always seems to rush the season; they can be heard singing even as February snow flies. For those of us who fall asleep with seed catalogs draped across our flannel-clad chests, these songsters are immensely cheering. Yet many of us are unaware of why certain birds seem to start singing—and nesting—so early in the season.

By the time you read this, spring may have a firm grip on your local area, but February is usually still winter in Ohio. It’s going to happen, though, spring is. Here are 10 long-awaited signs that a change in seasons is just around the corner.

Stuck inside on a snowy day? Looking for an excuse to get some fresh air? Do it for the birds! If the snow on the ground is wet and heavy, bundle up, tug on your boots, grab a bag of birdseed, and head outside. Because this is an all-ages activity, enlist any young birders you might have in your home to join you.

Do you have a problem with forgetting where you placed your reading glasses, cell phone, or car keys? Chickadees can't afford that kind of memory lapse. Forgetting where they've stored their seeds can be a matter of life and death. Fortunately, these little birds' brains have adapted to ensure that they won't face a bout of lethal forgetfulness.

Birds have a number of ways to beat the cold, but none so important as their feathers. You may have noticed how on a very cold day the birds at your feeder seem rounder and more puffed-up than usual. This is a way of keeping warm by raising the feathers to create pockets of warm air and enhance insulation. In addition, many species change their plumage, molting into a fresh thick set of feathers prior to the colder months.

Of all of the drummers in the woods, none is more interesting or has more impact on its neighbors in the web of life than the sapsucker. Check out some interesting facts about these fascinating birds!

With fall comes the end of the breeding season and the return of flock feeding among backyard avifauna. Birds that spent their spring and summer in solitude or paired with a mate while tending their clutches are banding together into groups. You might be noticing larger numbers of crows, starlings, finches, or robins in and around your backyard. Did you know that there are three unique flock feeding strategies?

Obtaining nourishment isn't a simple grab-and-go process among birdlife. In fact, feeding can be downright challenging for many species. To be able to eat, birds have to first search for food and then process what they find in order to make it digestible, tasks that are complicated for even your everyday backyard visitors.

Do birds fall in love? We don't know the answer to that, but many species form pair bonds that last through at least one breeding season. A few species mate for life, and a few species hook up only for the act of copulation. Regardless, it all starts with courtship. Singing and other vocalizations are a common and familiar way for male and female birds to make that special connection, but there are other ways birds catch the eye of that special someone.

Have you considered renovating your backyard to be more comfortable for birds? WBB contributor Elizabeth Bacher offers 11 ideas to make your property more appealing and safer for your feathered friends.

It's baby bird season! You'll often hear such words as chick, juvenile, fledgling, and nestling used to refer to young birds, but they don't all refer to the same stage within a bird's life cycle. It can be confusing to try to figure out which term refers to which stage, and even a few historical ornithological documents have gotten it wrong. However, we've rounded up the correct terms used within traditional ornithology to describe the baby birds you might see this spring.

Spring warbler watching means calling up information that has been stored, unused in the memory banks, for nearly a year. This article is designed as an exercise to stretch and warm up the mental muscles in preparation for the coming waves. When you have the right mindset, you will be amazed by how quickly you remember.

Who doesn't love spring? Flower buds are pushing up through the soil, birdsong is filling the air, trees are just starting to leaf out, and there's a promise of fair weather ahead—what's not to enjoy? The "usual suspects" are still at our feeders, since their natural food sources are not yet as conveniently available as the free fare we provide. However, be sure to look beyond your bird banquet for even more joyful signs of spring.

You don't need to be an avid birder to notice that birds make a wide variety of sounds. Some of these sounds are gentle and pleasant, like the beautiful phrasing of a newly arrived wood thrush in spring. Other sounds can be jarring and annoying, at least to a nonbirder, such as the loud mechanical imitations of a northern mockingbird on a summer night.

Backyard bird watchers around the world will be tallying and reporting the birds they see the third weekend of February as part of the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). While this is also a project of Audubon and Cornell Lab of Ornithology, it is not the same as Project FeederWatch. The GBBC is interested in birds beyond the feeders, and even beyond the backyard.

You don't have to be an avid birder to keep a bird list. If you're serious about feeding the birds, why not keep track of the bird species that you have seen at your feeders, in your trees and shrubbery, or otherwise in or over your yard or property?

Just because the days are shorter and the warblers and hummingbirds are gone from our midst (for most of us, that is) doesn't mean we should put our binoculars, field guides, and bird-watching plans in storage for the winter. There are many winter activities we can enjoy as backyard bird watchers. Here are a few suggestions.

I don't know about you, but I feel the changing seasons keenly—especially where the birds are concerned. The only thing that helps me get over the loss of summer bird song is the helter-skelter of fall migration, with warblers and vireos, thrushes, and tanagers flitting through the backyard trees on fall mornings. Then they are gone and the backyard is mostly quiet. With cold weather's arrival here in southeastern Ohio, the windows stay shut (except on warm afternoons) and we're reduced to enjoying our birds through a pane of glass.

In 2018, full moons will occur September 24, October 24, and November 22. If the night sky is cloudless, aim your binoculars toward the moon, and watch. Most migratory land birds make their twice-yearly journey at night, including thrushes, warblers, flycatchers, sparrows, orioles, vireos, and cuckoos.

Here's a fun project that will entertain both kids and adults alike: Make some festive decorations that your backyard birds will enjoy! All you need is some pinecones, colorful ribbon, peanut butter, a baking sheet, and a good mixed seed.

Dear Birdsquatch: I love woodpeckers and have managed to attract five woodpecker species to my backyard here in Kentucky. At my feeders they eat peanuts and suet and sunflower hearts. I know their natural food preferences are wood-boring insects, which they dig after with their chisellike bills. My question is this: How do they keep from knocking themselves out when they pound on a tree trunk repeatedly? Do they get concussions? Headaches?

Dear Birdsquatch: While examining my yard, I recently found a bare patch of earth strewn with wild turkey feathers. I've seen the occasional turkey in my yard, but they are very shy. Do these feathers offer clues that perhaps a predator killed a turkey here?

Dear Birdsquatch: Last spring a pair of house wrens took over a bluebird house in my backyard. I suspect them in the untimely demise of a clutch of Carolina chickadee eggs, which I found pierced and dropped below the nest box the chickadees were using. I've heard that house wrens are not good neighbors to other cavity nesting birds. Is this true? And if so, what can I do to discourage the house wrens?

Did you know that pigeons and doves are members of the same family? The largest species in that family are usually called pigeons and the others are doves, but genetically, pigeons and doves are close cousins. Also, pigeons and doves are the only birds that can drink water by sucking it into their esophagus, head down. Other birds must tip their head back to swallow water.

Did you know that you can turn your hobby of watching the birds at your feeder into genuine science? You can—just by participating in Project FeederWatch. If you can identify all the birds that visit your backyard bird buffet, you're qualified to participate in this citizen science project of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, which runs every November through April.

A flicker's tongue can extend two inches beyond its bill tip! That's necessary for probing deep inside tree crevices for yummy insects. But where does it store that tongue when not in use?

We've always had one or more birders on staff here at BWD and we've also been fortunate to have many staff members who are interested in nature and the outdoors, if not specifically focused on birds. Here in southeastern Ohio, where our offices are located, February is one of those winter months that can really make you long for spring. So this morning we went around the office to ask everyone his or her favorite sign of spring. Here's what we learned:

Birds fly lower before a storm. A busy bird feeder means bad weather is coming. Birds singing in the rain means the rain will soon stop. Sometimes birds are more reliable than TV weather forecasters. Humorist Al Batt offers a list of weather-predicting bird behavior.

Clever backyard bird watchers know that keeping their binoculars and a field guide handy to where they do most of their feeder watching is a smart idea. The last thing you want to do when a rare bird shows up is to scramble to find your binoculars.

Many of us enjoy keeping track of the bird species we see in our yards. It's both satisfying and enlightening to keep a list from year to year to see how the mix of species changes with the seasons, and to note the arrival and departure dates of migrant visitors.

During the middle part of the 20th century, eastern bluebirds were nearly wiped out in North America. Habitat destruction, pesticide use, and increased competition for nest holes from starlings and house sparrows decimated bluebird populations.

WBB reader Jess Yarnell has her cat Goldilocks to thank for turning her into a bird watcher. Her indoor-only window watcher needed some entertainment, so she purchased a bird feeder. The feathered friends started showing up, and bird watching became a family hobby.

The very first time I saw a Baltimore oriole was when it landed on my hummingbird feeder one spring. I was immediately hooked. I had to have this bird in my yard! For the next five years, I placed numerous orange slices on tree limbs and special oriole feeders filled with orange nectar on hooks all over the yard-to no avail.

It was Henry David Thoreau who noted that the "bluebird carries the sky on his back." Thoreau wrote often of the eastern bluebirds that shared his space in Concord, Massachusetts, in the mid-nineteenth century.

When my son, Ryan, and daughter, Amanda, were around 5 and 3 years old, we built our first squirrel box as a family project. Soon after placing it high in our maple trees, squirrels began to entertain as we watched their babies grow and frolic in and on top of the box—our gift to them.

Semi-retired 35 years later, I decided to relive the good times past by placing a new squirrel box in our mulberry tree.

You don't have to be an avid birder to keep a bird list. If you're serious about feeding the birds, why not keep track of the bird species that you have seen at your feeders, in your trees and shrubbery, or otherwise in or over your yard or property?

The seeds of evening primrose can be a valuable food source for birds in cold climates throughout North America. Each flower produces hundreds of seeds, and when the flower dies, it holds on to some and drops others. The stalks of dead evening primrose are "Eat Here" signs to songbirds, marking a likely food source at the base.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 was put in place to protect birds, and it "makes it illegal to take, possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, purchase, or barter, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs" of native birds unless you have a permit to do so.

I have been watching birds in several yards as my husband and I have relocated around the country. Feeding and watching birds give me a sense of stability and pleasure as we move from state to state. Most recently I have watched and photographed birds in Tucson, Arizona; Andover, Massachusetts; and now on the coast of Maine!

My friend had grackles that nest in his yard. He informed me that he had been watching as two of the birds, which he refers to as blackbirds, built nests in adjacent trees. He related to me that he had been watching one bird steal material from the other's nest.

Have you ever noticed how much of what we consider "conventional wisdom" is actually wrong and ridiculous? Bird-feeding conventional wisdom is riddled with bad information. But you, my friend, are in luck! I have tried most everything in bird feeding at least once, and I have made nearly every mistake possible. Why? So you won't have to!

All birds—and only birds—have feathers, but how much do you know about feathers, really? WBB managing editor Dawn Hewitt shares surprising facts!

Now that the buzz and tingle of spring migration is over, we birders can shift our attention to the low thrum of summer and the nesting season. This can be a tough transition. Bird numbers don't match those at the height of migration, bird activity such as singing is beginning to wane, and the weather (depending upon where you live) can get uncomfortably hot. A birding friend of mine said recently, "Summer birding is boring, if you don't know how to get into it." She's right. So here are some tips for "getting into it!"

Here's a great picture of a prothonotary warbler rocketing out of its nest box at the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area in Northwest Ohio. Got an idea for a caption?

A problem that bird watchers typically encounter more than any other is getting their binocs pointed right at the bird.

The start of a new year is just around the corner. Now is a great time to consider starting a backyard journal to help you keep track of the bird information you observe each day. Keep it near your primary feeder-watching window, and add to it throughout the day. A year from now, you'll know when to say goodbye to your winter visitors, and when to expect the earliest spring migrants.

Here's a great picture of a dark-eyed junco doing... we're not sure what, exactly. Maybe the hokey-pokey? At any rate, we need a caption for this image!

We're taking an informal survey of our readers: Are you noticing a reduced number of northern cardinals at your feeders? Several staffers here at BWD/WBB headquarters are finding very few cardinals at their feeders. Please share your cardinal report with us! Are your cardinal numbers lower, higher, or about the same as last year? And please tell us where you're located.

Lots of people have bird stories worth sharing, and we'd like to hear yours! Watching Backyard Birds is seeking short (400-words, tops) stories from backyard bird watchers. You don't need to be an ornithologist or a professional writer—we're not offering to pay you, but we will offer a one-year subscription or renewal to WBB in exchange for stories we publish.

Okay, I admit it. When the first signs of summer's end appear, I get that old "butterflies in the stomach" feeling associated with going back to school. This passes once I remember that school is something I no longer have to attend. Next comes a wave of sadness to see the lushness of summer and our farm's abundant birdlife begin to wane. Then I force my mind to focus on all the wonderful changes that autumn brings. "Live in the now, dude!" I counsel myself. In the spirit of "living in the now," here are 10 things I love about autumn in my backyard.

Some backyard bird watchers are so focused on spring migration that they seem to discount the rest of the year. But guess what? Spring migration is only half the show! Here are a few tips to keep in mind when birding during fall, especially for warblers and other backyard migrants.

Breaking news: A common nighthawk has set up housekeeping on our warehouse rooftop here at the Bird Watcher's Digest headquarters in southeast Ohio. Everyone here is having a blast watching this mother nighthawk as she diligently incubates her eggs, but she needs a name!

Looking ways to attract birds to your backyard this summer? Here are 10 suggestions for enhancing the bird-friendliness of your backyard. These tips will work no matter where you live in North America!

The return of the first ruby-throated hummingbird is one of the most highly anticipated spring events in eastern North America. Although a few of these winged gems spend the winter months in parts of the southern United States, the vast majority winter in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Each year the hummingbirds travel remarkable distances between their wintering grounds and their summer breeding areas, which span from the Gulf of Mexico to southern Canada.

Most people can't wait for spring to arrive, and backyard bird watchers seem especially eager for the earth, spinning on its invisible axis, to lean closer to the sun. When the winter weather breaks, it's time to get outside to look for hopeful signs that spring is on its way!

We've got a problem. We have this great picture of a young pileated woodpecker in the nest cavity, but we need a caption!

Backyard bird watchers from more than 100 countries made history this past winter in the first global Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). In the largest worldwide bird count ever, bird watchers counted more than 25 million birds on 116,000 online checklists, recording more than 3,500 species. That's one-third of the world's total bird species.

In our new Photo Blog segment, featured Blogger Julie Gidwitz shares captivating photos of juvenile phoebes, bluebirds, hummingbirds, and more.

These brand new field guides from Donald and Lillian Stokes are sure to become a valuable resource for many bird enthusiasts. Based on the best-selling The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, which was released in 2010, these updated volumes are split into two portable, regional guides, making them more concise and easier to handle in the field.