Hey, fellow bird lover! 👋
Welcome back to The Flyer 🐦 So glad you're here. Each month we bring you original stories, stunning bird photos, fascinating tidbits from the birding world, and a little something to make you stop and look up. Whether you're a lifelong birder or just someone who loves seeing a flash of color outside the window — this one's for you.✨
What would you give to see a Resplendent Quetzal in person? 🤩
BIRD OF THE WEEK
The Mountain Quail
by Aaron Maizlish (Flickr)
📍 Found in western North America
🎶 Click here to hear their calls
If you want to find a Mountain Quail, it might be better to listen than look. Though this is the largest Quail in the United States, they often stay well-hidden, blending in perfectly with the thick brush. Listen for their repetitive, one-note call around dawn and dusk — they’ll come down to lower elevations during the colder seasons, and can be found as high as 10,000 feet, usually close to a water source, when the heat returns.
When you do spot one, you can ID it by the two brown, thin plumes sticking up from its head, almost like insect antennae. It also has a distinctive gray-blue cap and chest, and brown wings with white, vertical stripes lining the bottom half of its body.
Fun fact: A Mountain Quail’s plumes can tell you a bit about how it’s feeling: when they’re down, it’s relaxed, but when they’re up, it probably hears you coming and is staying extra still to avoid detection.
by George Lamson (Flickr)
Birding bits you should know about...
by Boris Smokrovic (Unsplash)
🏠 Moving Day
These birds are almost extinct. A radical idea could save them.
The Sihek, or Guam Kingfisher, is already extinct in the wild. Soon, Siheks raised in captivity will be released to an entirely different island to try to revive their species.
🔮 Crystal Canaries
How do these AI-created birds make you feel?
😙 Whistle While You Work
Speaking to an expert about birdsong
Listen to a conversation with an Irish ornithologist who’s on a mission to record the song of every Irish bird on the Blindboy podcast.
An amazing bird photo taken by one of our community members. Submit yours to hello@flyingcolors.co to be considered for an upcoming edition!
by @RyanFMandelbaum Twitter
A QUOTE
the day is done, a clover in
a bucket of clovers.
we’d like to see every
day as if it were the last,
crumpling in a ball and rolling
towards the expectant fire.
we’d like our descendants to reel
in pleasure and hints of sorrow
at the sound of our name.
but really, there’s a granivorous
bird, nuzzling and strewing seeds,
a bird that is a quail.
— Daniel
Thank you for being part of our flock!
Be sure to follow us on Instagram, and if a friend forwarded you this email, you can subscribe here.
Questions? Ideas? Epic bird photos? Reach out at hello@flyingcolors.co
About Flying Colors
Flying Colors makes premium organic wild bird food, offering ethically sourced, toxin-free seeds and nuts of the highest quality to nourish wild birds of all types and inspire birders of all ages.
Each specialty blend and single-origin creation is rigorously sourced & researched, and every jar is produced with love & packaged by hand in small batches in New York's Hudson Valley and tested in our own backyards.
