Here's a remarkable story about a bird that survived Superstorm Sandy. A Northern Gannet was flying over the Atlantic Ocean near New Jersey’s south shore, just as Sandy reached the coast there. Coincidentally, the gannet wore a tiny GPS transmitter on a tail-feather, so scientists were…

The territories of Townsend's Warblers and Hermit Warblers overlap in Washington State. Ornithologists call the overlap where the two species interbreed a "hybrid zone." The hybrids - like the one seen here - reveal characteristics of both. And they may also lend clues about our changing…

In recent decades, the number of Marbled Murrelets, a seabird of the Pacific coast, has declined. Scientists in Canada and the US have analyzed the chemical composition of murrelet feathers - some from birds carefully preserved since 1894 by the Burke Museum in Seattle. The analysis shows…

16-year old Nathan Goldberg is all fired up about birds. What starts such an interest and where can it lead? Here's Nathan: "One day at the Brookfield Zoo, I saw a Wood Duck, and I said to myself, 'When I get older, I'm going to see that bird, but in the wild!' When I started birding I…

The Douglas squirrel is a pint-sized, chestnut-red native resident of forests west of the Cascade rim. They waste no time in telling you - and other squirrels - you're in their territory, particularly if you're near their central larder of conifer cones. They're named for Scottish explorer…

Shakespeare's tragedies and histories are filled with crows, owls, and ravens, birds of evil portent, promising sickness and death. Shakespearean actor Rod Molzahn describes some of them! King Henry speaks to Gloucester: "The Owl shriek'd at thy birth - an evil sign; the Night-Crow cried…

Join members of the Klamath Bird Observatory in Ashland, Oregon, as they head east over the Cascade Mountains and drop down into the Great Basin. They're looking in particular for diurnal raptors, that is, eagles, hawks, harriers, vultures, and falcons that soar and hunt during the day. To…

September 27th marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. The book awakened the public to the dangers of DDT and other pesticides. But many weren't ready to listen. Her opponents called her "an hysterical woman." Even people who could see the effects…

Two-thirds of migrating birds fly at night, making it a challenge to track their movement. Dr. Andrew Farnsworth of Cornell is using a combination of bioacoustics and radar to learn when birds migrate and where they stop, feed, and rest. The acoustics tell what species are migrating at…

Adrian Dorst arrived on Vancouver Island in British Columbia 40 years ago to survey the birds of the Pacific Rim National Park. His photographs helped conserve the Meares Island forest when it was up for logging. [Juvenile Pacific Golden-Plover seen here--] What is it about the people who…