Gordon Hempton, the Sound Tracker, believes there are lessons we can learn from listening to birds. When Gordon was traveling in the Australian Outback, he heard a Rufous Whistler — like the one pictured here — singing his heart out. Gordon notes the delicate nature of the male's work:…

During fall migration, a Bar-tailed Godwit like this one will fly over the Pacific Ocean, making a non-stop flight of 7,000 miles from Alaska to New Zealand. These amazing birds can achieve their epic journeys only after fattening up – along the coast of Alaska in fall, or along the Yellow…

Thanks to radio transmitters, scientists have vastly increased their knowledge of Red Knot migration patterns. For example, the vast majority of Red Knots on the Pacific Coast rely on a small number of places to rest and feed during spring migration from Mexico to the Arctic. Those…

Gordon Hempton, the Soundtracker, likens the joy he feels after a day of recording Western Meadowlarks (their eastern cousin is seen here on the left...) to the experience of John Muir, who knew individual American Dippers (also known as Water Ouzels; seen here on the right) by their songs…

As spring warms the land, imagine what resident birds like this White-tailed Ptarmigan – and those returning – might now be hearing, in places long covered by snow. Gordon Hempton, the SoundTracker, captures the music… “John Muir uses the expression, 'Snow melting into music.' But I knew…

Unless kids are introduced purposefully to nature, they may understand the plight of the Amazon rain forest, but never dampen their feet in a local stream. They may never know the names and songs of the birds they see or understand the wonder of migration. Nature camps for children can…

Denver Holt has spent more than 30 years studying the birds in the field. No wonder he can sound so much like this Boreal Owl! Holt conducts field research on eight species of owls in Alaska and Montana. He says, "I think winter is a blast! We all love trapping and banding in the…

Blackpoll Warblers make the longest migration of any North American songbird, an annual round trip of eleven to twelve thousand miles. In August, the warblers leave Western Alaska and head east across Canada to the Maritime Provinces and the coast of New England. Then, the tiny songbirds…

The wild music of migrating geese may have led some of the First Americans to the New World. Perhaps in witnessing the migration of waterfowl they imagined a new world of abundance below the southern horizon. They may have asked themselves: Where do the birds come from in spring and where…

Many Spectacled Eiders spend the winter in ice-free openings in the Bering Sea, above what was once the Bering Land Bridge. In spring, the ducks, which live only along the coasts of Alaska and far eastern Russia, fly to tundra lakes to breed and feed on aquatic insects. After breeding…