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 ...

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 ...