A Ford Truck, Home to Newborn Robins, Is Stuck at a Kansas Car Dealer

Employees of a dealership in Olathe, Kan., found the nest, which is protected under federal law, on top of one of the truck’s tires.

The contract has been signed and the down payment made. But the buyers of a new Super Duty F-250 pickup truck keep waiting — and waiting and waiting —to drive it off a Ford dealer’s lot in Kansas. Not because of supply-chain issues or custom options that are difficult to find.

This Early Birding Icon’s Advice on Leading Bird Walks Is Still Fresh—126 Years Later

Birding as we know it changed forever, or perhaps began, in 1889 with the publication of Florence Merriam Bailey’s Birds Through an Opera-Glass, considered the first field guide to North American birds. Convinced that a connection to nature could lead to public support for conservation, in 1900 Merriam Bailey published an essay in Bird-Lore (Audubon’s predecessor) about how to inspire curious amateurs to pick up binoculars and head outside.

How Humans Are Bringing An Endangered Bird Back from the Brink of Extinction

150 years before the American Revolution, settlers arriving on our shores found an amazing site— 90 million acres of pine forest, stretching from southeastern Virginia to Florida and Texas. Those trees would become an engine for the British navy, supplying pitch to seal boat hulls; and tar to grease wagon axles. Scientist Brian Eerden with the Nature Conservancy says farmers cut down more trees to grow crops, and another animal kept longleaf pines from coming back.

How to Keep Squirrels Out of Your Bird Feeder

Before you spend money on a squirrel-proof feeder, experts say one simple placement rule can make all the difference.

You cleaned and filled your bird feeder hoping to attract colorful visitors like cardinals, chickadees, robins, and finches. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a squirrel shows up and empties half the seed before the birds even get a chance.

How Indigenous-led Efforts in Oklahoma Fill Eagle Conservation Gaps, Bring Tribes Together

Fifty-five eagles have been released from the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma’s Grey Snow Eagle House over the last two decades. Their Indigenous-led conservation efforts are part of a larger bald eagle success story.

Social bald eagles nose-dive across the large enclosure at the Grey Snow Eagle House, while others perched up high watch.

How Did Birds Survive While Dinosaurs Went Extinct?

In fact, birds and dinosaurs lived together for about 100 million years. Birds descended from a particular group of dinosaurs called the dromaeosaurs, or “running lizards,” which were a family of feathered theropod or “beast foot” dinosaurs that included velociraptor, But when an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago off the coast of what is now Mexico, dinosaurs went extinct – but some birds remained. You might wonder why.

Owls in Native American Cultures

We humans love owls. Why not? With their flat faces and forward facing eyes they look more like us than any other bird. It is only the owls at our program that prompt people to go “awwwww.” But do all people love owls? One day I was holding Teasdale, our Great Horned Owl, when a man walked past holding his hand up to the side of his face. He was shielding his eyes from viewing Teasdale. A visitor I was talking to at the time told me that some Native Americans feared seeing owls as they were considered bad omens.

One Bird’s Biography

One early May, I watched a pair of Baltimore Orioles courting in my backyard. Before long, the female was weaving an intricate nest in the sugar maple outside my bedroom window. Three weeks later, the begging calls of chicks emanated from within.

As a self-professed “wildlife biographer,” I sought to photograph every stage of their story. I learned each oriole’s unique traits.

California’s Endangered Condors Have a Surprising New Foe

When it comes to conserving the California condor, progress is precarious. One wild pair recently laid the first egg in northern California for the first time in a century, and there are now more than 400 condors in the wild, up from 26 in 1987. It sounds like the start of a comeback story. But as a new study in Nature Communications highlights, condors are still threatened by a stubborn, surprising enemy: lead poisoning. The birds are not ingesting lead directly, but they feed on animals that were shot by hunters and left on the landscape.

Shakespeare Referenced Dozens of Bird Species in His Work. This Artist Has Made It Her Mission to Paint Them All

Missy Dunaway’s idea to paint all of Shakespeare’s birds first took flight in college after a chat with a friend. During the conversation, while trying to quantify the playwright’s talent, Dunaway noted that he’d coined or popularized many common phrases, and then she cited his broad knowledge of nature. “I said, ‘Just look at how many birds he mentions,’” Dunaway recalls. “And that’s just birds.”

The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art

Birds have long been a source of mystery and awe. Today, a growing desire to meaningfully connect with the natural world has fostered a resurgence of popular interest in the winged creatures that surround us daily. The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art examines mankind’s relationship to birds and the natural world through the eyes of twelve major contemporary American artists.

7 Podcasts About the Joys of Bird-Watching

These shows offer expert advice and fun facts that will help both novices and enthusiasts get the most out of tuning into the winged world.

Once thought of as a quirky pursuit for retirees, bird-watching has exploded in popularity in recent years. Surveys show that nearly 1 in 3 Americans now partake, with a notable spike among younger generations thanks in part to tech innovations like the Merlin Bird ID app, which takes the guesswork out of birdsong identification.

Black Oystercatcher

So here we have another bird naming conundrum. Despite its name, the Black Oystercatcher rarely eats oysters! It might better be named the mussel catcher. Mussels and limpets are their primary food. They locate open mussels and disable them with a quick jab to the adductor muscle. With the mussel stuck in the open position, the oystercatcher can pull out the contents with the tip of its chisel-like bill. Oystercatchers often forage in the wave zone, because mussels that are splashed by waves open more frequently.

Momentary Meditations are published every Monday to awaken what Rachel Carson called “the sense of wonder” and what Albert Schweitzer called “a reverence for life.” Looking deeply into our interdependence with all life on earth helps us know what we must do. In our harried world, these meditations are meant to serve as a renewable resource for compassion and love.

A Pileated Pair Thrives - A pair of pileated woodpeckers has called our neighboring woods their year-round home for many years. Even when we can’t see them, we enjoy the drumming they do to mark their territory. This morning, they visited an old tree stump just outside our window.

Birdist Rule #50: Learn to Live with Bird Errors in TV and Movies

Don't let the frustration drive you insane.

Once you start learning to identify birds, and especially once you start learning calls, you’ll realize that your entertainment choices are littered with avian errors. I've talked a bit about this problem before when I assessed the accuracy of the bird cameos in last year's Oscar contenders, but I feel like this is a topic that deserves its very own column.