Mr. Cairngorms
In 2013, while compiling information for a chapter on the contributions of ornithology to evolutionary biology, I carried on a lively correspondence, by email, with Adam Watson. Watson was a …
How Google Images Can Help Us Understand Martial Eagles’ Diet and Decline
The Martial Eagle is one of the largest and most powerful of the booted eagles. These menacing giants dominate the skies over sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from Senegal to Somalia and down to South Africa.
How Do Gunnison Sage-Grouse Fare After Translocation?
Humans moving animals around for conservation?! This may not immediately sound like an action we should advocate for, but the purposeful movement of individuals from one place to another is often an effective way to give small, declining populations a boost in size or increase their genetic diversity.
In the Shadow of Men
In 1973, I was stranded for several days on a small island in Witless Bay off the southeast coast of Newfoundland. I had gone there several times already that summer, …
Crystal Ruiz Earns Certified Association Executive Credential
Crystal Ruiz, AOS Director of Operations and Administration, has earned the Certified Association Executive (CAE) designation. The CAE is the highest professional credential in the association industry. To be designated …
Dirty Birds
As a teenager, in the 1960s, I spent much of my spare time during the school year hanging out at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), not far from my family’s …
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.
Road Proximity May Boost Songbird Nest Success in Tropics
In the world’s temperate regions, proximity to roads usually reduces the reproductive success of birds, thanks to predators that gravitate toward habitat edges. However, the factors affecting bird nest success …
The Nice Bird Club
When I took first-year Zoology at the University of Toronto, in the 1960s, our lab instructor/coordinator was Dr J. Murray Speirs. Speirs was a kindly gentleman with a bit of …
Possible Oahu Populations Offer New Hope for Hawaiian Seabirds
The two seabird species unique to Hawaii, Newell’s Shearwaters and Hawaiian Petrels, are the focus of major conservation efforts—at risk from habitat degradation, invasive predators, and other threats, their populations …