Opinion | This ‘Shazam’ for Birds Could Help Save Them

I spent my entire childhood playing in the woods and meadows of rural Alabama. The world back then was lush and green: cooled by creeks, carpeted by pine needles, attended by birdsong. In those days there were nearly three billion more birds in North America than there are today, and my young days played out beneath the sound of their music.

The staggering loss of birds — nearly a third of them since 1970 — is due to human behavior.

Why it Matters That Climate Change is Shrinking Birds

Many of the benefits that humanity derives from the natural world, like the provisioning of oxygen, are priceless. Those ecosystem services that can have a dollar value assigned to them, for example the pollination of crops, generate far more value for humanity each year than the entirety of the global economy. Climate change can threaten these services through the loss of species or shifts in species’ size or abundance. For example, warming temperatures have reduced the size of many birds over the last four decades; this is emblematic of the scale of climate change impacts on the world’s biological diversity.

At Orchards and Vineyards, Birds Are Outperforming Pesticides

Jim Nugent grows cherries on his 40-acre orchard in Michigan’s Lee­lanau County, an idyllic peninsula of dunes and tree-covered hills jutting into vast blue Lake Michigan. The sur­rounding water moderates the worst of the frigid winters here, and the rolling topography drains cold air from the upland orchards. Cherries thrive in the sandy soil.

“The fruit belt in Michigan is pretty tight to the coastline of Lake Michigan,” says Nugent. In that limited geography grow nearly half the U.S. production of tart cherries, and quite a few sweet cherries, too.

These Student-Led Audubon College Clubs Are About Much More than Birding

When the pandemic upended college life, the resilient young people leading a new network of on-campus Audubon chapters didn’t let canceled plans and remote learning derail their mission. The Audubon Campus Chapters program started, fittingly, with a student speaking out. During a Q&A at the 2017 Audubon Convention with the organization’s leaders, they stood up and said they and their fellow students were already engaged with conservation—but the students could achieve more if they had support.

A Watershed Moment: How Boston’s Charles River Went From Polluted to Pristine

And what the cleanup shows us about the power of federal waterway protections

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan officially announced earlier this month that the Biden administration will reinterpret the Trump administration’s definition of what constitutes “waters of the United States” – waterways that are deserving of federal protection.

The Entire Colorado River Basin is in Crisis

We need climate action, now.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) recently shared alarming news about the unprecedented conditions on the Colorado River and I’ll attempt to explain their complicated projections. Reclamation, the agency that oversees federal water management across 17 western states, publishes some pretty wonky information, even to those of us who regularly interface with this agency and rely on its analyses.

Loons Are Returning With Their Eerie, Mournful Call

Over the past two summers, visitors to Walden Pond in Concord have seen and heard something unusual at the body of water made famous by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden.

“We have common loons at Walden Pond for the second straight summer,” said Peter Alden, naturalist, author, and co-founder of Spark Birding, a local bird-watching organization. “It’s new and exciting to hear them at Walden.”

Red Knots’ Epic Spring Migration Includes North Carolina

Only about the size of an American robin and usually weighing under 5 ounces, it completes a marathon migratory flight. Most of these knots, the rufa subspecies, winter in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America.

From there, their 9,000-plus-mile route to their nesting area in the middle- and high-Arctic areas of northern Canada is one of the longest migration routes for a bird.  Although some red knots winter in the United States — with some most years on Ocracoke — Florida has the highest numbers.

Small Birds in Big Bend

A stretch of arid desert in West Texas is the crown jewel of the state’s birding hotspots.

The trip starts with a bang. A Common Poorwill, a bark-colored bird the size of your palm, jumps up from the narrow blacktop and sputters head-on into our pickup’s undercarriage. Lee Hoy, a wildlife guide with a long white beard and thick, black-framed glasses, is at the wheel, winding his truck along the dark road from Terlingua to Big Bend National Park in the early morning hours. “Dangit,” he mutters. Minutes earlier, Hoy had successfully avoided mowing another poorwill down.

Majestic Pink Spoonbill Birds Seen in D.C. area, Far From Floridian Habitat

The roseate spoonbill’s journey up the East Coast this year is a mystery.

The beautiful and striking roseate spoonbill is usually found in Florida, the Southeast Atlantic coast, Cuba and near the Gulf of Mexico. But this summer, it’s been spotted in the District, Virginia, Delaware, New York and even as far north as Maine.

With its vibrant pink coloring, enormous wingspan, football-shape and rounded bill, the spoonbill is a sight to behold.

The Trickster

In some Native American legends, the Blue Jay was a revered trickster who worked with foxes and coyotes. But because of their loud vocalizations, others have thought of Blue Jays as gossips, looked upon as noisy, arrogant, and selfish birds. Their flashy plumage seemed prideful as well. But either way, Blue Jays have entered the modern imagination and continue to fascinate us.

Many common American expressions take their origin from Blue Jays. “Naked as a jaybird” which makes little sense. Of course Blue Jays don’t wear clothes, but what bird does? Then there’s “Crazy as a jaybird” which makes a little more sense given their raucous behavior and loud calls.

Birding With My Human

We’re climbing the steps of the bird tower — the soft shuffle of Willa’s sneakers on the wood ascend first, the dull metal march of my feet follow close behind. It’s 5:30 on a Sunday morning, and we’re the first ones here — unless you count the birds, which I will, very soon.

It’s windy at the top, clouds rushing across blue, droneless skies. Willa adjusts the old fishing hat on my head, tugging at the frayed edges. It belonged to her grandfather, and she doesn’t want it to be swept into the lake. She tilts her head, robin-like, and smiles. “It looks good on you.” I’ll take her word for it.

Seven Strange And Wonderful Bird Sounds You Won't Believe

Birds are acknowledged masters of sound, including some extremely unusual, rarely heard “songs.”

Famed bird sounds, like the Wood Thrush's ethereal song, get a lot of play time in our collective imagination. But these dazzling tunes are only the tip of the iceberg. Birds are capable of an amazingly diverse range of sounds. Some of the most wonderful and bizarre are also among the most overlooked.

‘Bird Brain’ Helped Birds To Survive Mass Extinction Of Nonavian Dinosaurs

Research on a newly discovered bird fossil led by The University of Texas at Austin found that a unique brain shape may be why the ancestors of living birds survived the Chicxulub asteroid impact about 66 million years ago that killed off the nonavian dinosaurs. "Living birds have brains more complex than any known animals except mammals," said lead investigator Christopher Torres, who conducted the research while earning a Ph.D. from the UT College of Natural Sciences and is now a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Ohio University and research associate at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences.

The Symphony of the Everglades: Secrets of a Seemingly Still Ecosystem

I was just 12 years old in 2013 when I took my first official trip to the Everglades. I call it official because of the many times I had quickly skirted through the wetlands on a highway or seen the mangroves out my car window. My family and I had decided to buy tickets to take an airboat ride at Sawgrass Recreation Park. We clambered onto the airboat with ascending stadium seats and a giant fan in the back and waited to begin our tour of one of the most famous wetlands in the world. When the boat started up, I was overwhelmed by the cacophony of engines and shouts and the stinging of my hair whipping across my face. a

How To Become a Better Bird Photographer: Advice From Audubon Photo Award Winners

While lucky timing never hurts, it takes practice and patience to create images like those featured in this year’s 2021 Audubon Photography Awards. That’s abundantly clear, at least, when reading the stories behind each shot. How do you get there? A few months ago, we decided to ask former winners and honorable mention awardees of past contests. We sent out a survey to more than 70 photographers, alumni of Audubon photo contests held since 2009. Below you can find a sampling of some of the sage advice that flooded into our inboxes.

The 2021 Audubon Photography Awards: Top 100

This year more than 2,000 photographers from across the United States and Canada submitted images to Audubon magazine's 12th annual Audubon Photography Awards, and our panel of expert judges whittled down the entries to eight stunning winners and five honorable mentions. With more than 9,000 photographs entered in the contest, there was an abundance of exceptional avian images from which we selected 100 additional shots to share.

Displayed in no particular order, these photos feature birdlife at its most vivid, vulnerable, formidable, and playful.

National Park Nature Walks, Episode 9: Inside a Migratory Bird Sanctuary—Podcast

Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you take this acoustic journey, you will be longing to get back outside.

Strap on some headphones, find a quiet place and prepare to experience a humid, salty morning full of birdsong inside the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana.