The cheerful-voiced Chestnut-collared Longspur shares its northern prairie breeding range with grazing cattle. Although heavy grazing can have adverse effects, breeding densities of longspurs jump by two, three, or even 10 times when ranchers graze their cattle responsibly on native…

Connecticut Warblers nest in the northern boreal forests, migrate through the Midwest, and winter in the rainforests of South America. Even with all that traveling, you rarely see one of these birds. Though their loud, ringing song might be easy to identify, it often seems to emanate from…

The peace of the vast Guyanan jungle is abruptly broken with the dawn chorus of male Capuchinbirds, one of the most bizarre birds in South America. The singing male bows forward, then suddenly stretches to his full length, raising a monk-like cowl of feathers around his naked blue-gray…

The Dark-eyed Junco is one of the most abundant backyard birds in North America. But it’s not our only junco. In the Southwest, the Yellow-eyed Junco lives in cool mountain forests from Arizona and New Mexico, through Mexico into Guatemala. Ornithologist Francis Sumichrast was in Veracruz…

European Starlings regularly adorn their twig nests with marigolds, elderberry flowers, yarrow leaves, and even willow bark — all of which are full of aromatic chemicals, which fumigate their nests and are thought to discourage pests and parasites. Scientists discovered that starlings…

The drumming of the male Ruffed Grouse is one of the most evocative sounds of the North American forest. Familiar as these accelerating burps are to hunters and hikers, the origin of this bizarre sound was long a mystery. It took the advent of wildlife cinematography to solve the riddle…

The Eurasian Collared-Dove is rapidly increasing across the US and southern Canada. This sandy pink bird with the neat black neckband was released in the Bahamas in the 1960s. Brought in as pets, some doves escaped. They made it to Florida a few years later and have been spreading in a…

Pity the bird that gets between a Semipalmated Sandpiper and its meal out on the mudflat! If crowded while foraging, they will readily attack, bumping birds of their own and larger species out of the way with their bodies. The deceptively cute juveniles can be just as irritable as their…

The Golden-winged Warbler builds its nest in thickets beneath an open sky, which was a rare habitat in the old-growth forests of eastern North America. But the chestnut blight at the turn of the 20th century wiped out billions of trees, an estimated one fourth of the forest in Appalachia…

Dowitchers are a common type of sandpiper seen across North America. Two species, the Short-billed and the Long-billed, stop to feed busily on wetlands during migration from their Arctic breeding grounds to their wintering areas. The origin of the name is unknown. Theories include that it…