Are Aggregate Pits a “Trap” for Nesting Bank Swallows?
Sand and gravel pits may seem like an unlikely place to nest, but they greatly resemble Bank Swallows’ natural habitat along rivers and lakeshores.
Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Nesting Season Meets Climate Change
Early in their ecology classes, students learn that plants and animals facing a changing climate have three options: adapt, move, or die.
Do Prairie-Chickens Care More About Land Cover or Wind Turbine Noise?
Imagine living in a grassland landscape with an almost constant low-frequency hum from spinning wind turbine blades. The humming is distracting, so what do you do?
Songbirds Indicate Short-Term Restoration Success
To understand the impact of restoration efforts, one of the things we can do is study the wildlife that lives in these human-restored habitats.
The Threat of a Green-Headed Monster
Affectionately known to some as the “green-headed monster,” the Mallard is one of the world’s most recognizable species of waterfowl.
Seeking Mixed-Species Flocks in China’s Misty Mountains
Have you ever looked up at a mountaintop in the distance and wondered what birds might be living there? When mixed-species flocking fanatics like ourselves see that mountain, another set of questions catches our imagination.
Urban Living Leads to High Cholesterol… in Crows
Animals that do well in urban areas tend to be the ones that learn to make use of resources such as the food humans throw away. But is our food actually good for them? A new study published in The Condor: Ornithological Applications suggests that a diet of human foods such as discarded cheeseburgers might …
Despite Habitat Protection, Endangered Owls Decline in Mount Rainier National Park
When the Northern Spotted Owl was protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, the primary threat to the species was the loss of the old-growth forest it depends on. However, new research published in The Condor: Ornithological Applications shows that the Northern Spotted Owl population in Washington’s Mount Rainier National Park has declined sharply in the …
Black-backed Woodpeckers & the Emerging Threat of Homogenous Forest Fires
It’s fire season again in northern California. In some parts of the state, the evenings will glow with those too-familiar burnt orange sunsets while residents keep a wary eye on the news.
Reproduction Versus Immigration in North Carolina’s Piping Plovers
The beach: the sun, the sand, the water. It’s a wonderful place to be in the summer, whether you’re a shorebird or a human.