Reproductive data collected over 20 years help guide recovery of a reintroduced population of critically endangered California Condors

By Victoria Bakker and Myra Finkelstein Related paper: Lead, trash, DDE, and young age of breeders linked to lower fertility in first two decades of reintroduction for critically endangered California Condors in California by Victoria J. Bakker, Myra E. Finkelstein, Daniel F. Doak, Rachel Wolstenholme, Alacia Welch, Joe Burnett, Arianna Punzalan, Joseph Brandt, Steve Kirkland, …

Tracking Guam’s Snake Survivors

For bird aficionados, waking up on Guam can be a surreal experience. The soundscape is nearly devoid of birdsong other than the clucking of chickens and the occasional chirp of a Eurasian Tree Sparrow. Guam’s silent forests are the work of the brown treesnake, an invasive predator that was accidentally introduced to the island after World War II.

How Vulnerable are California’s Great Gray Owls to Wildfire?

Throughout western North America, the combination of longer, hotter dry seasons and dense forests is yielding more frequent, larger, and more severe wildfires, including immense “megafires.” Habitat loss from increased fire activity could put wildlife species that depend on mature forest at risk.

Joe Grinnell’s Notes

For at least 400 years, ornithologists—and presumably naturalists of every stripe—have kept notebooks recording each day’s observations from the field. In 17th century England, these were called ‘Commonplace Books’, rather large bound volumes that were used by scholars to record ideas, notes about what they read, experiences and observations. This was the Renaissance, and the …