How to Coexist With a Belligerent Catbird

My childhood bedroom had a Jane Goodall quote on the wall — “My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature” — and I think this helps explain how I became a person who surrendered five blueberry bushes and my dignity to an angry catbird. We called her Catherine. The spring when my daughter was 2, Catherine claimed the entire garden beside our house as her domain. I discovered this when we went to pick blueberries from our bushes; as my toddler plucked the fruit, the bird began calling loudly.

Quotes With Wings

From poets, to authors, to the famous American naturalist and ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson, these quotes are inspiring and memorable.

But first, a quote about quotes. “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” Winston S. Churchill.

The Invasive-Species Debate Is Not Always Simple

Where starlings are concerned, I thought my heart was a stone.

Starlings descend in great flocks on orchards and farms, decimating crops and dining on feed meant for livestock. In the air, they can bring down airplanes. Their excrement fouls city streets and walkways. And that’s just the nuisance they cause to people. European starlings also outcompete native birds for roosts and nest holes.

Several Birds Named After Philadelphians Will Be Renamed as Part of an Effort to Stop Honoring Enslavers and Racists.

The American Ornithological Society will remove people’s names from birds. Many of those birds are now named after prominent Philadelphia scientists.

For more than two centuries, American ornithologists have been naming birds after people.

The Gentle Rain of Songbirds

Spring migration, warfare, and human migration

THEY know nothing of our wars and celebrations, our privilege and petty distractions. They fly just the same over Gaza as they do Washington, D.C., or the two Amazons. Day and night their wings beat and their lungs burn along migratory routes northbound toward an uncertain fate. All the while we ourselves go about our business, our routines, mostly unaware of their presence overhead — or their perils.

Celebrating Links Across Species Amid a Nightmare of War

Did you know that Gaza — well, Palestine — even has a national bird? The Palestine sunbird is a gorgeous creature, crowned in iridescent green and blue. “This bird is a symbol of freedom and movement, it can fly anywhere." He’s a funny little chap: a sharp dresser with a sleek grey jacket, a white waistcoat, red shorts, and a small grey crest for a hat. With his shiny black eyes and stubby black beak, he’s quite the looker.

A Few Words About Nests

Spring is proceeding apace in this yard, despite my worst fears. For 28 of the 29 years that my husband and I have lived in this house, the elderly widow next door mostly shared our commitment to a natural yard. And because her house backed up to a little patch of woods, too, between us we managed to create a miniature wildlife sanctuary. I could sit outside in springtime and hold very still while a tufted titmouse pulled hairs from my head and carried them to her nest in the yard next door.

A Flamingo Flock Inspires Hope: Have the Rare Birds Returned to the Everglades For Good?

For the last century, flamingos in Florida were more likely to be spotted on T-shirts and cups in a souvenir shop than flapping around in the wild.

Then last summer, a flock of the rare and beautiful birds—a group is fittingly known as a "flamboyance" of flamingos—was blown to Florida on the fierce winds of Hurricane Idalia.

What to Do if You Find a Bird Nest Near Your Home

Birds make nests over front doors, on porches and patios, even on cars. Here’s how to keep one safe.

If you live in a city or suburb, it can be hard to feel connected to nature. But next time you step outside, pause, look and listen — even in the most densely populated areas, birds are almost omnipresent. And no matter where you live, that can be a kind of magic, especially during nesting season.

Preventable Loss: A Billion Birds Die Each Year From Window Strikes

University of Cincinnati ornithologist Ron Canterbury displayed dozens of birds that died from striking glass windows in the city.

It’s a tiny fraction of those he and his students have collected in recent years for his long-term study on window-strike mortality. Here were magnolia warblers, American redstarts, white-throated sparrows, tiny hummingbirds and larger mourning doves and woodpeckers.

Echoes of “Silent Spring”: How the Wood Pellet Industry Will Silence Birds

I first read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring while sitting on my porch in the evenings after school, surrounded by the vibrant calls of Carolina Chickadees, Northern Cardinals, and American Goldfinches visiting my nearby bird feeders. As I turned the pages, I was transported into a world where the beauty of those same melodies was under grave threat.

A Quest to Bring Back Habitat For Grassland Birds

For decades, the call of the Northern bobwhite quail was synonymous with life on the farm along Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The bird’s pleasing chirp, a whistling bob-white that sweeps upward in pitch, would ring across the field during spring breeding season, around the time when farmers planted their crops. “Quail are very vocal and easy to see when they're around, so people want to hear and see them again,” said Dan Small, coordinator of the Natural Lands Project at Washington College.

Behind the Birdsong Project: Alex Somers

Before it won a GRAMMY for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package, For The Birds: The Birdsong Project was a seed of an idea from co-creators Randall Poster and Rebecca Reagan. It was their initial pitch that drew in the more than 200 musical artists, visual artists, and actors who participated in the project—including musician Alex Somers. The unprecedented scale of the endeavor immediately hooked Somers: “The Birdsong Project was so massive that people from so many different music communities had at least one friend who was a part of it.”

A Photographic Atlas to Spark a Lifelong Love of Birds

Birds of North America: A Photographic Atlas is a sweeping project from Bruce M. Beehler and photo editor Brian E. Small to document all 1,144 bird species in North America, including Hawaii. American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is proud to sponsor the book, with one-third of proceeds from the book benefiting ABC's work to conserve wild birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. The book is available through Johns Hopkins University Press.

Black Birders Week 2024 at the Smithsonian

At the Smithsonian, we are teaming up with Black AF in STEM to celebrate Black Birders Week by offering a series of programs and experiences in Washington, D.C. We support Black AF In STEM’s work to celebrate and highlight birding as a lifelong learning journey that is enjoyed by Black cultures across the diaspora. Participating from the Smithsonian are the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).