Walking along a trail in a northern Illinois woodlands, I noticed the silhouette of our earliest arriving migratory flycatcher. It’s not a colorful bird — Its body and wings are grayish-brown, its ...

A major study published this month in the journal Science shows that North American bird populations are in steep decline, with 75% of species affected. Most alarmingly, common birds —the species that ...

The year that Ohio became a state, 1803, the first bird was banded in North America. The subject was an endearing little flycatcher known as the eastern phoebe. Pre-European settlement, phoebes sited ...

The Greek goddess Phoebe is associated with the moon — which explains why a bird called eastern phoebe showed up in my yard after October’s full moon. OK, the moon had nothing to do with the phoebe ...

In Greek mythology, Phoebe was the goddess of brightness, the moon and intellect. So the name is a bit of a burden for a little flycatcher named eastern phoebe, which is showing up in Houston yards.

As birds go, the eastern phoebe is as plain as they come. Nevertheless, the phoebe is an active, energetic and interesting bird. The phoebe is uniformly gray brown, slightly darker on the head. Its ...