birds
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The arrival of the stork isn't always a happy occasion [VIDEO]
An irreverent little video about population pressures -- "The Stork" by Nina Paley. Watch it here.
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Remembering my last oil spill
It’s been three years since a container ship, the COSCO Busan, spilled 53,500 gallons of bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay, just after my return home to live on the bay by the sea that I love. Remnant oil still sometimes surfaces after it rains and the bay’s herring fishery has yet to recover. Ten […]
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Earth Out of Sync – Rising Temperatures Throwing off Seasonal Timing
This piece was written by my colleague Janet Larsen at the Earth Policy Institute. A newly hatched chick waits with hungry mouth agape for a parent to deliver its first meal. A crocus peaks up through the snow. Rivers flow swiftly as ice breaks up and snows melt. Sleepy mammals emerge from hibernation, and early […]
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Endangered frequent fliers [slideshow]
Photo: Roy LoweWe love birds. They’re beautiful. They do really cool things like building elaborate nests — without thumbs! And they can fly. What’s cooler than flying? Okay, maybe X-ray vision, but still. We love birds. Which is why we were stricken — though not surprised — by the recent State of the Birds [PDF] […]
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Where the Sahara meets the Atlantic
Rising sea levels are threatening the island homes of Mauritania’s Imraguen fishermen. Above, child plays alongside flooded landscape on Nair Island.Tim Bromfield / Atlantic Rising The Banc d’Arguin, where the Sahara meets the Atlantic in Mauritania, is a staging post for over two million exhausted migratory birds from Europe and Siberia. Terns dive for fish, […]
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Teddy Roosevelt and the search for new ‘wilderness warriors’
Theodore Roosevelt had his delicate spots—he was an asthmatic child and later a naturalist who reveled in birdwatching. But 100 years after his presidency, the image of him that endures is decidedly more swaggering—an outdoorsman who loved to hunt, a mountaineer, a populist who thundered against corporate “despoilers” of the public welfare. He also left […]
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Calif. Audubon: Putting birders to work to build a case for climate action
The following essay was written by William B. Monahan, Senior GIS Scientist with Audubon California. The Yellow-billed Magpie’s native habitat in California is threatened by climate change.Alison Sheehey / California Audubon SocietyThey traipse through forest, grass and wetland, through mud, rain and even snow. They carry binoculars and take careful notes of everything they see. […]
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Urban hawks take flight on New York’s Upper West Side
Photo: Ralph HockensReason No. 137 that I love commuting by bike in New York City: I get to watch baby hawks go to flight school. Last year, I was fascinated and then heartbroken by a pair of red-tail hawks that built a precarious-looking nest over the West Side Highway, produced a trio of hatchlings, then […]
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Umbra on cats and birds
Dear Umbra, I have three cats, and live in a close-in suburb of Boston. I love the cats dearly, and let them outside during the day to wander about, and generally not have to live an indoor, sedentary, boring life. My question concerns their hunting instincts: I haven’t had any luck with any particular way […]
