Red-shouldered Hawks With a Taste for Avocado Join a Growing List of Fruit-Eating Raptors

www.audubon.org

Until now the behavior had been undocumented in the species, but recent research has revealed that more birds of prey consume plants than we realized.

Honeyguide birds learn local human dialects

news.mongabay.com

Honeyguide birds in northern Mozambique learn local human “dialects,” adapting to village-specific calls to guide honey-hunters to wild bees’ nests.

Lord God Bird

orionmagazine.org

Does the ivory-billed woodpecker still exist?

In Washington, Birds Are Giving ‘Yelp Reviews’ of Forest Restoration Work

www.nytimes.com

A collective of land trusts, conservancies and tribes is capturing birdsong with audio gear and A.I. for clues about habitat health.

Bat vs. Robin—Scientists Capture Real-Life Audio of Midair Hunt

www.scientificamerican.com

For the nearly three-year-old female bat soaring into the Spanish skies in March 2023, it was just another night of striving to feed herself. But her overnight exploits were about to become the stuff that scientists’ dreams are made of.The…

A Tiny Seabird Faces Growing Threats in the Forest

Nesting often high in the redwoods’ canopy, the marbled murrelet faces new and longstanding risks.

She was a quiet bird expert. Then she was called to investigate a murder in Maine. – The Boston Globe

www.bostonglobe.com

A mild-mannered scientist, a brutal murder in Maine, and the birth of forensic ornithology.

My Life with the Penguins

Nautilus

Wind was the first thing I heard in the morning, along with a door opening and closing as someone got up first and went out to use the outhouse. Sounds reached into my awareness through the fog of sleep. Then:…

These Sandhill Cranes Have Adopted a Canada Gosling, and Birders Have Flocked to Watch the Strange Family

Ornithologists and locals wonder what the future holds for this chick being raised by much taller, but still doting parents

Ask Kenn: How Do Birds Keep Themselves Clean?

Audubon

Who's Kenn? Simply put, Kenn is a national treasure. A renowned birder, author, and conservationist, Kenn Kaufman has spent his life dedicated to observing birds, reading about birds, writing about birds, and sharing the world of birds with others.

The Long Flight to Teach an Endangered Ibis Species to Migrate

The New Yorker

The birds left Bavaria on the second Tuesday in August. They took off from an airfield, approximated a few sloppy laps, and then, such are miracles, began to follow a microlight aircraft, as though it were one of them.

These Are the Greatest eBird Checklists for the United States

Audubon

Since eBird’s launch in 2002, there have been more than 61 million U.S. checklists submitted to the community birding platform, from more than 703,000 birders. The majority of them are fairly mundane—a couple of American Robins in the backyard, maybe, or some Ring-billed Gulls in a parking lot.

The Elephantine Memories of Food-Caching Birds

The New Yorker

Some animals can remember where they’ve buried hundreds of thousands of seeds. Why can’t we remember where we’ve put our eyeglasses?

A Feathered Murder Mystery at 10,000 Feet

In January 2023, scientists attached tracking devices to eight grey plovers on the coast of the Wadden Sea off the Netherlands. The hope was to learn more about the birds’ yearly migration to breeding grounds in the Arctic.

Preserving The Bahamas: A Journey of Conservation and Resilience

Audubon

Managing Audubon Americas' initiatives in The Bahamas under the Coastal Resilience strategy for the past two years has been an inspiring experience. Recently, I embarked on another expedition to The Bahamas alongside Aurelio Ramos, Senior Vice President of Audubon Americas.

Birding: The long and short of migrations from Maine

Humans have a propensity to organize, to put things into boxes. People who try to pigeon-hole nature often do not fare well with their efforts. I still remember the admonition of one of my biology professors who said that nature has not stake in being classified.

Uncovering What Audubon Missed, and What He Made Up

By the time Kenn Kaufman finished the research for his upcoming book on early North American ornithology, his view of John James Audubon, history’s most famous birder and the central figure in his new work, had changed entirely — starting with whether Audubon was a fraud.

How documenting the disappearance of the great auk led to the discovery of extinction

When species cease to exist, we often say they went "the way of the dodo." But it might be more fitting to say they went "the way of the great auk" because it was the Icelandic bird's disappearance that led to the discovery that humans activities could make a species go extinct.

‘She Is Such an Athlete’: Astoria the Wild Turkey Is a Manhattan Celebrity

Manhattan has a new unlikely feathered friend, and she’s visiting luxury retailers, dining at high-end restaurants and roosting in Park Avenue’s densest, greenest trees.

Black-Capped Chickadees Are Masters of Memory—and Scientists Are Finding Out Why

Smithsonian Magazine

Every fall, black-capped chickadees cache thousands of seeds, insects and other snacks to help them survive North America’s harsh winters. But how do these petite birds—named for their distinctive “dee-dee-dee” sounds—remember where they’ve stashed all this food?