Humans outperform Merlin Sound ID in field-based point-count surveys

It’s a morning many birders dream of: You wake up, make your morning coffee, and settle in to read the eBird rare bird alerts that rolled into your inbox as you slept. Suddenly, you see something that makes your heart race—a rare bird you’ve never seen before was sighted in your area!

Distinctive casque morphologies among cassowary species

The irony of writing a story about 45-kilogram cassowaries—with forelimbs as small as those of chickens—for a blog called Wing Beat is not lost upon me. My coauthors and I are particularly excited to publish a paper for Ornithology about these flightless birds, as it seems most of the researched avian species in this journal are no larger than a mango.

AOS 2026 nominations and applications open

Nominations are now open for the American Ornithological Society’s (AOS) 2026 Council, Classes of Fellows and Elective Members, and various Society awards. You can help make the AOS stronger by participating in these important annual elections for leadership roles within our Society and by recognizing the achievements of our members.

Call for Papers: Wesley Lanyon Early-Career Review Paper Award

The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is excited to announce a Call for Papers for the current cycle of the Wesley Lanyon Award, a publication award for the best review paper authored by an early-career researcher. The 2027 Wesley Lanyon Award will be selected from eligible review papers published in 2025 or 2026. It will provide …

Hatch early and eat well: Patterns of juvenile dispersal and recruitment in Mountain Chickadees from a long-term study

Being a fledgling is difficult—and dangerous. The vast majority (~80 percent) of young birds do not survive this stage, succumbing to predation or starvation. What might give a vulnerable fledgling a head start when leaving the nest? Once they leave, how far do they move between their hatch sites and first breeding sites, and why?