Have you ever wondered how some migrating birds return to the same location, year after year? Do they learn from their parents, or do they just know how to migrate? Some birds (like this Bar-tailed Godwit) have an innate homing ability, while others follow their parents. The Bar-tailed…

Hawaii has more bird species in danger of extinction than anywhere else in the United States. George Wallace of American Bird Conservancy explains that a long period of evolution in isolation gives rise to specialized island species. Birds that nest on the ground don't have any natural…

Thousands of hummingbirds - including these Ruby-throats - are now in southward migration. Hummingbirds that summer in the western US will arrive in the mountains of southern Arizona. (Ruby-throats take a more easterly route.) Countless hummingbird feeders provide continuous nectar in this…

On the grassy edge of one of the ponds at Hanalei Wildlife Refuge, we find a Nene -- or Hawaiian Goose -- a small goose found nowhere else but Hawaii. The Nene is the only state bird that is also an endangered species. Once common in the Hawaiian Islands before the first humans landed here…

Gavin Shire, Communications Director for American Bird Conservancy, became an ultralight pilot while working with Operation Migration. The project is teaching endangered Whooping Cranes, raised in captivity, the route to migrate between Wisconsin and Florida. The birds are trained to…

Seattle resident and renowned author Ivan Doig reflected on a world without birds in his book-length meditation, Winter Brothers. "A birdless world, the air permanently fallow, is unthinkable. To be without birds would be to suffer a kind of color-blindness. Occasional flashing…

Helen Hays has been observing and banding the Common and Roseate Terns that nest on Great Gull Island since 1969. She's there with colleagues from the American Museum of Natural History and a host of dedicated volunteers. These terns nearly disappeared when plume-hunters slaughtered them…

The endangered Marbled Murrelet is a bird of two worlds. Martin Raphael, a biologist with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, explains: "It lives in the marine world. But then it nests on the limbs of large, old trees. Its fate is tied not only to the fate of the trees, but also on…

Young Piping Plovers hatch in early summer, in competition for use of the beach. Patrick Comins, Director of Conservation for Audubon Connecticut, says if there were no fences or exclosures, it would be very easy to step on the eggs. "You can hardly see them. We have to put up little cages…

Author and naturalist, Frances Wood, and BirdNote founder, Chris Peterson, recently paid a visit to Earth Sanctuary, on Whidbey Island, WA. Chuck Pettis has created this place, where birds feel welcome. And why? Chuck says, "We're losing biodiversity. This is a way of taking personal…