Travel Tales
Reflections on the Birds of Botswana
While I’m not a hardcore birder—I don’t routinely wake at the crack of dawn to spend time with our feathered friends—I always enjoy getting to know a region’s bird life.
Good Nature Travel Blog
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Asia & The Pacific
New Zealand Builds Gyms for “Problem” Birds
In the United States, it often seems, there is only one method for dealing with “problem” animals. Whether it’s Canada geese, grizzly bears or wolves, our first impulse is to eradicate them. That’s not always the strategy used by other countries, and a case in New Zealand is a prime example.
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Nature & Wildlife
Fossil Finds and Penguin Packs: Final Frontiers Still Found on Earth
When you look at the immense footprints humans have left on this planet, it might lead you to conclude that we’ve trod, explored and exploited almost every inch of it; that there is nothing truly unknown or wild remaining. That’s why getting new evidence to the contrary is so hopeful and inspiring.
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Videos
Video: Starling Shapes in the Sky
European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) are now common birds in the United States; and sometimes, as they say, familiarity breeds contempt. Loud, boisterous and ballsy, the birds are known to eat through crops, monopolize feeders and cause airline disasters.
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Videos
Video: The Reverence of Zion National Park
It was love at first sight when I met Utah’s Zion National Park. With its massive, rock behemoths and soothing-sounding, dripping-water canyons that sprout green ferns seemingly out of solid stone, it is one of the most exquisite and soul-stirring spots in the world.
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Nature & Wildlife
“Bird Years” and the Year of the Bird, 2018
Wildlife science has many measurements; for example, “carrying capacity,” “depredations” or “translocations.” But there’s a new scale I recently came across: “bird years lost.” A bird year is a quantity devised by ornithologist Daniel Cristol at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
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News & More
106-Year-Old Fruitcake Found in Antarctica
For a food that has been around at least since the Middle Ages, fruitcakes certainly have their share of detractors.
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Nature & Wildlife
Turkeys: Smart and—Perhaps—Beautiful Birds
Despite what you may have learned in elementary school, there were probably no turkeys at the first Thanksgiving. The written menu listed fowl, but this most likely meant ducks, goose, grouse, passenger pigeons, swans—or maybe even bald eagles.
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Videos
Videos: Whooping Cranes and a Bold Experiment
In 1942, there were fewer than 20 whooping cranes left alive in the world. Their habitats were vanishing, and they had been hunted almost to extinction. If we were to keep them from blinking out, we needed to think in new and bold ways. With the help of science, we did.
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Nature & Wildlife
Whooping Crane Recovery a Victim of Federal Budget Cuts
After more than 50 years, the largest captive-breeding-and-release program for whooping cranes is closing. Housed at the U.S. Geological Survey Eastern Ecological Science Center in Laurel, Maryland, the $1.5 million program was cut from the federal budget for fiscal year 2018, which began October 1, 2017.
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Videos
Halloween Video: the Silent Flight of Owls
Halloween and owls have a long and storied history with each other. It’s thought that the connection may have been forged around ancient Halloween bonfires. As nocturnal hunters of bats, owls would often be seen in the light of the flames as they flew low, searching for food.
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Videos
Bird Video: The “Caw” of a Crow and the “Kraa” of a Raven
Ever since I read Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” in junior high school, the bird has fascinated me. Corvids, such as ravens and crows, are among the smartest of all birds and have a reputation for solving more and more complicated problems invented by increasingly creative scientists.